These are my pictures from visit to the Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve outside Olympia, Washington on October 23, 2021. It is managed by the Department of Natural Resources and requires a Discover Pass. For more information about this hike, visit Washington Trails Association.
From the DNR website:
Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve (NAP) was established in 1976 to protect rare examples of “mima mound” landforms and Puget prairie grasslands. The site includes a small Garry oak woodland and savannah (widely spaced oak trees with grass understory) and also supports a variety of prairie dependent butterflies and birds, and Douglas-fir forest. The NAP currently comprises 641 acres of grassland covered mima mounds, forest and oak woodland. In 1966, the National Park Service designated Mima Mounds Preserve as a National Natural Landmark, for its representation of our nation’s natural landscape; one of only 17 such landmarks in Washington state.
After spending time with family at Pioneer Park in Tumwater celebrating birthdays and walking a trail along the Deschutes, I drove over to Mima Mounds hopeful because it hadn’t rained yet. Yet.
By the time I got there and started on the paved trail out onto the prairie, it was that drizzly, whip at your face kind of rain so I only made a small loop and visited the two overlook structures and information kiosk.
This was my first time and I hear it’s prettier in the spring but it was interesting to walk along and wonder, gophers or glacial melt? There were two van loads of what appeared to be college students also pondering the creation of the mounds in the less than ideal conditions. Luckily, the rain was also keeping the nearby shooting range visitors at a minimum, too.
My favorite part was walking back towards the car and the Garry oak along with guessing at what the ageing white markers used to demarcate, maybe there was once an older kiosk? The one I saw with pictures of flora did not have numbers now.
I will have to return in the spring for the wild prairie flowers!
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