Telephones were installed in each cabin. Without these facilities along the trail, shipwrecked sailors died of exposure because they were unable to penetrate the thick, lush, coastal rainforest. Ribbons of forest line both the West Coast Trail and Long Beach. Sitka spruce grows closest to the ocean. Their bent trunks and twisted branches give evidence of the gale force winds that pound the area as well as attest to the stamina of the trees themselves.
Shorter trees grow in clumps in the second section of forest.
These trees are similar in shape to heads of cauliflower and grow on stagnant, pine, moss-covered bogs that are at least ten thousand years old. The third forest region consists of dense rainforest. The canopy is so thick, that no sun whatsoever reaches the forest floor. The most common tree in this area is the western hemlock but the oldest is the western red cedar. One magnificent specimen is over a thousand years old and measures approximately seven feet in circumference and 140 feet high.