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We currently live in SW Washington and I have hiked all over the state and Oregon. We also lived in the Catskills and honeymooned at Lake Placid, NY.
There is no beating the PNW for beauty. The ADKs come close but it's a different kind of beauty if that makes any sense. The trees out here in WA are just enormous both in height and sometimes circumference as well. Getting up into the Olympic Pensinsula you start to feel like you're in the Redwoods park they are so large. Fir, hemlock, spruce, pine ect. are all abundant up here and the moss that hangs from the limbs I haven't really seen in the same fashion in NY. The other thing as was previously mentioned is that there are more deciduous trees mixed in in the ADKs and Catskills whereas in the PNW all you see is a sea of evergreens for miles and miles...then a mountain then more trees...and maybe a lake and possibly several lost hikers filtering water from said lake....I say that as someone who has nearly died a couple of times out here in the wilderness.
If you want PNW trees in upstate NY then you need to get up into the Lake Placid, Tupper Lake area in my opinion but even then it's close but not the same. As someone else said, pine is more on the eastern side of the Cascades in areas like Bend, OR ... Spokane, Wa ... Wenatchee, WA ect. Another difference is that the evergreens here, being taller, have a lot of trunk with no limbs closer to the ground a lot of times so it's this big cathedral type area and then a canopy that can get pretty dark even on a sunny day. However where upstate wins is Fall colors but even here it comes damn close to rivaling New England Fall colors the way the orange and yellow contrasts with the deep greens.
Honestly to put it simply I'd say the PNW is more vast, thick, rugged and taller trees while upstate has more charm, more accessibility and more mixed trees.
Don't know if that helped but hey, I love the trees too!
Where is Bob Ross when you need him?
Last edited by Landslide84; 07-24-2020 at 02:58 AM..
Having spent time hiking in both, I agree with fully Landslide84. I'm a native NYer, but gotta say, the PNW does have a bit more panache than the Adirondacks (and the Appalachians, too).
Evergreens are common west of the Cascade crest in Washington State, Pines are common east of the Cascade crest in Washington State. It is simply due to a drier climate east of the crest. There are exceptions, for sure, but this is the general rule.
Having spent time hiking in both, I agree with fully Landslide84. I'm a native NYer, but gotta say, the PNW does have a bit more panache than the Adirondacks (and the Appalachians, too).
However, it is a much narrower stretch of green than what you find in the eastern U.S.
PNW stays green in winter. Adirondacks less green in winter.
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