Dennis Stovall
Google
Since access is by permit, which really means a guided tour, this is both special and expensive. It's worth it to spend a day getting introduced to native flora and fauna in a rainforest at 7200 ft above sea level. The birds are spectacular. The trees and shrubs that sustain them are beautiful and fascinating. The park evidently was a large ranch that the Nature Conservancy acquired and that is now a national park. Serious work goes on to reestablish native species and exclude others, i.e., the entire refuge is tightly fenced with hog wire to keep out the feral pigs that have done so much damage to native plants. Likewise, while hiking it's not unusual to come across mongoose traps. Between the pigs and the mongooses, many native birds and other critters have gone extinct over much of their original ranges. For further control, there's cross-fencing. Access is strictly through locked gates. Of course, anything that flies and can live there, moves freely about, and the island(s) are overwhelmed with non-native birds, particularly because of released or escaped "pet" birds. Mosquitos are also an introduction that's doing great harm, carrying diseases into local bird and mammal populations that have no resistance.
When one thinks of a rainforest in the tropics, it's probably of low-land, super-saturated kinds. This one if quite open, and on a sunny introduction, looks more like some dry-land savannah than what it is, which you appreciate when a shroud of fog rolls down the much higher peak and begins a steady weeping, without or without real rain. In that respect, it's reminiscent of the coastal temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest, only with totally different flora and fauna.
