VFR Olympic National Park - Charter Flight/DHC2 Beaver - Elwha River Restoration

In this video we fly the deHavilland DHC-2 Beaver on a special flight assignment from Forks (S18) Washington to the Elwha River. We use ForeFlight on the iPad to guide us over the Olympic National Park mountains to our destination on the former bed of the Lake Mills reservoir. On this journey, we learn about the restoration of the Elwha River ecosystem. The Elwha River now runs free with the removal of two dams that stood for a century. Discover the revival of the Elwha River and how the salmon population has access to spawning grounds that drives the ecosystem.
https://youtu.be/fN3miktgEd0

I have been to Olympic National Park once in 1953 with my parents and sister. We first stopped at the Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation where a friend of my father from his WW-II radar work at MIT worked and showed us the models of the reservoirs and dams that became Grand Coulee and Bonneville before they were built. You are fortunate not to have met any logging trucks coming down the one way, one lane road on the periphery of the park. They had the right of way and you had to dodge into the turnouts to let them pass in a hurry as they were early diesel and had no Jake brakes. The fish ladders on the Columbia River amazed us with how the fish could retain their spawning. Your production is very well made. Getting aviation into the story was excellent.

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Originally Posted by 2ndsegment

I have been to Olympic National Park once in 1953 with my parents and sister. We first stopped at the Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation where a friend of my father from his WW-II radar work at MIT worked and showed us the models of the reservoirs and dams that became Grand Coulee and Bonneville before they were built. You are fortunate not to have met any logging trucks coming down the one way, one lane road on the periphery of the park. They had the right of way and you had to dodge into the turnouts to let them pass in a hurry as they were early diesel and had no Jake brakes. The fish ladders on the Columbia River amazed us with how the fish could retain their spawning. Your production is very well made. Getting aviation into the story was excellent.

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Thanks very much! Appreciate your words and memories!