Humptulips River
Mouth of the Humptolips Rivers in Grays Harbor
Bridge of Highway 109 in Humptulips.
The Humptulips River is a river in Grays Harbor County in the U.S. state of Washington. It has its origin at the confluence of the 32- km long East Fork Humptulips River with the 48 km long West Fork Humptulips River. The river empties itself after 45 km in the Grays Harbor, the Mündungsästuar of Chehalis.
Run
The Humptulips River has its origin in the Olympic National Forest. This part of the Olympic Peninsula receives annually about 5,600 mm of precipitation and is traversed by many watercourses. East Fork and West Fork of the river originate on the flanks of separating them Humptulips Ridge. Between the western arm and the Quinault River is the Quinault Ridge, the eastern arm is separated from the Wynoochee River by the Fitzgerald Peak.
The two arms flow to the south and southwest, then leave the mountains and unite around 7 km above Humptulips. In this place the river from the U.S. Highway 101 crossed. Below the town, right on the mouth of Stevens Creek, is a salmon farming station. The river then flows south and empties into the North Bay of Grays Harbor, which opens towards the Pacific Ocean. Two smaller places, Copalis Crossing and Tulips, lie near this estuary.
Although the Chehalis River also flows into Grays Harbor, the Humptulips River is considered the westernmost tributary of the Chehalis River river system, as the United States Geological Survey also understands Grays Harbor as part of this river system.
Impact of the timber industry
The Humptulips River eroded annually about nine acres of land on its shores. The severity of erosion and destruction of the shore is partly due to impact of the timber industry in its catchment area back. Especially in the area of the East Fork Humptulips Rivers forest areas are precipitated in a large scale. The largest part of the catchment area is attributable to production forests, but there are pastures and farmland. About 228 km ² of the catchment area are within the Olympic National Forests. The source area is part of the Olympic National Park.
About 30 weirs were built for the purpose of rafting. This decimated the natural migration of salmon. To mitigate these effects, various salmon breeding stations were put into operation by the river.
Hydrology
Other names of the river are the Geographic Names Information System, according to Hum -tu- Dickie, Humptolups, Humtutup and To -ta- lah. The name is derived from the Humptulips Indians, who belong to the people of the Chehalis. Some sources give the word " Humptulips " means " hard to punt ," according to another opinion, the name means " cool area ".