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Montesano sits at a meeting of waters. The Wynoochee River runs down from the Olympic Mountains and joins the Chehalis right here — and from there the water carries on to Grays Harbor and out to the Pacific. That same path is a salmon highway. Follow it.
Tap each stage — or use the arrow keys — to follow a Pacific salmon from a gravel nest in the upper Wynoochee all the way to the ocean and back home again.
Born from rain and snowmelt high in the Olympics, the Wynoochee flows south past Wynoochee Lake and its dam, then down to meet the Chehalis just north of town. Its cool, gravelly upper reaches are prime salmon spawning water.
The Chehalis drains one of the largest river basins in Washington, gathering water from dozens of tributaries — the Wynoochee among them — on its long, winding way to the coast.
Where the river meets the sea, fresh water and salt water mix in a wide estuary. This is where young salmon pause to make the change to ocean life — and where returning adults gather before the run upriver.
The open ocean is the salmon's feeding ground. They spend years out there growing strong before the pull of home turns them back toward the harbor and the rivers.
Several kinds of salmon and sea-run trout use the Chehalis and Wynoochee. A few you might spot:
The biggest of the Pacific salmon. Chinook can travel thousands of miles at sea before returning to spawn.
Bright and acrobatic. Coho fry often spend a full year in our rivers before heading to the ocean.
Tough and numerous. Chum head for salt water soon after emerging, making the run down to Grays Harbor early.
A rainbow trout that goes to sea and comes back. Unlike most salmon, steelhead can spawn more than once.
A smaller native trout of coastal streams — some stay in fresh water their whole lives, some run to the harbor.
Salmon tie the whole watershed together. Clean, cool, shaded streams with gravel beds and fallen logs are what young salmon need to survive — and protecting those streams protects everything downstream of them, all the way to Grays Harbor. When the salmon are healthy, our rivers are healthy.
It’s a story happening right outside the classroom window — and a good reason to take care of the water that runs through home.