Cloud forest "scenes"

13 March 2009

Here are some bigger-scale views from our visits to the cloud forest. In addition to the one visit to the Selvatura “park” (a bit too garden like to be real), we spent parts of three days in one or the other of the two main reserves here. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, which we visited twice, is the bigger, better developed, and more famous one. The Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve was our destination on one day.



We had a range of weather conditions for these three days. The first day (Monteverde) combined cloudy and misty early with sunny for the second half of the visit. The second day (Santa Elena) mostly featured a thick fog that by turns settled in or lifted. Everything was wet and drippy and the trails were muddy. The third day (Monteverde) had a full on (although light) rain shower. It was a bit tough to tell how much was from clouds above and how much was from the wind bringing cloud drops at a high rate to the canopy, which then dripped on us from above. The rain that day was definitely stronger near the ridge than it was at the entrance station, which is a few hundred feet lower.



These photos span approximately the visual range I could see and capture at the “scene” scale with what I think of as effective images. Coincidentally, one image comes from each of the three visit days. I have many examples like the first shot, where an opening off of the trail presented some stunning view of the cloud forest in all of its drippy richness. I like this one because it combines the delicate and photogenic ferns with the bits of flowering bushes on the left. (Flowers are rarely showy on the scene scale at the forest floor.) The second photo is from our second visit to Monteverde and illustrates another theme of a path through the lovely forest with walkers (Ingrid and Daniela here) heading off toward the vanishing point. The third picture was shot on our first visit to the Monteverde reserve. It is from the continental divide, looking off to the southeast. The persistent winds here are from the northeast and carry the moisture up from the Atlantic. The photo captures something of the fog and dampness.