Assuming said valley is not shrouded in fog, the first thing your visitor says is something akin to, “Oh, look at the mountains ... the western Cascades are our own personal snow-capped end ...

Those mountains eroded; the Cascades you see today rose only five or six million years ago. The western part of the park differs markedly from the east. Moisture blows in from Puget Sound and the ...

receives a lot more rain as prevailing winds off the Pacific Ocean and mountain ranges, such as the Cascades, unleash months of moisture on the region. Now, a new study from the University of ...