Thursday, July 7, 2011

Poison Oak In Western Washington

Warning sign in Seattle's Seward Park

A while back I was on a geology field trip looking at the Crescent Formation on the Olympic Peninsula. We made a stop at Lake Crescent. While scrambling up a slope of rock rock fragments to reach a cliff face I was surprised to see a patch of poison oak. I was thinking we were practically in the rain forest being on the Olympic Peninsula. Until that time I did not know poison oak was present in western Washington. I managed not to get a rash from that encounter and then saw the warning sign after I came back down the slope.

Poison oak is not common in western Washington but is present at a few droughty hot spots in western Washington. Our dry summers allow for it to thrive particularly on south facing rock slopes or areas that get hotter in the summer than other parts of western Washington. Besides Lake Crescent, I have seen patches on the south facing slope above Commencement Bay north of Tacoma and at the southern tips of both the Bolton Peninsula and the Toandos Peninsula on the northern part of Hood Canal. The southern tip of the Toandos is called Oak Head and I have not seen Oak trees there, but have seen plenty of thick poison oak patches.

The biggest poison oak patches I have seen are in the clear cuts near Brinnon on the west side of Hood Canal. After thrashing through some rough woody brush for several minutes I realized I was not in my usual brushy environment - I had been smashing through a thicket of poison oak. The Brinnon area has very dry and warm summer weather, and in areas of thin soil over bedrock or glacial till, poison oak thrives.       
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4 comments:

  1. Mossy MomJune 7, 2012 at 7:28 PM

    I found poison oak on the Dry Creek trail yesterday. It's not at all dry there.

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  2. UnknownAugust 27, 2014 at 8:44 PM

    Poison Oak can also be found at Priest Point Park in Olympia, and on the south side of Dog Mountain on the Columbia.

    What I would like to know is how, and when, the Poison Oak arrived. I came to WA from CA (where I was familiar with Poison Oak) in 1963, and saw no Poison Oak anywhere in WA during fairly extensive travels. Now, however, it is a different story entirely ...

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  3. UnknownMay 16, 2016 at 10:07 PM

    There is a huge thicket of poison oak at the beach at the end of the Sequalitchew trail in DuPont as well. First thicket I've ever encountered in Western Washington. I'm very familiar with it however since I went to college in California. I've also heard there is some on Eagle Island in Puget Sound.

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  4. LansserJune 16, 2019 at 3:21 PM

    I walk/jog the Sequalitchew trail x3/wk. There's already posted signs of Poison Oak in large thickets at the end of the trail. But today I got snagged by a Poison Sumac bush 1/3 the way down the trail, and there is a lot of poison ivy and poison oak on the sides of the trail. I'm going to be writing the city of dupont because the city hall building is at the head of the trail, and something should be done about this.

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