Day 5: Saturday 7/13/13 Mount St. Helens

We left the campsite early (as usual) and drove south out of Olympic National Park and down Interstate 5 to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument which is a memorial to the May 1980 eruption. We first stopped at the Visitor Center at Silver Lake which had a great 10 minute movie about the eruption and the events leading up to it and after it.  The ranger presentation was really well done too.  Then we drove the 47 mile road to Johnston Ridge Observatory, stopping at some of the overlooks along the way. The drive in was along the North Fork of the Toutle River down which the record-breaking mud-slide came, destroying everything in the valley for 17 miles.  

The following is a video presentation of the series if events:

After reading all about the eruption and hearing all the presentations, we went out to do some of the trails.  It was like walking on Mars.  It was very desert-like, although a lot of the vegetation is coming back.  The privately owned areas affected by the eruption have been replanted, especially those owned by the timber companies, who planted faster growing Douglas firs...see the pics below.

The federally-owned lands, however, have not been replanted and have been left to regenerate on their own.  It is interesting to see the cycle of regrowth, which they say is much faster than scientists thought it would be.  There are lots of wildflowers, mainly scarlet paintbrush, which is red and makes it look like the landscape is covered in lava!

We liked the Boundary Trail to the Harry's Ridge Trail which took us in front of the area of the lateral  blast of the crater and to a point above Spirit Lake, which is still full of logs blasted out of the ground from the eruption.  These hikes were great!

It was interesting to see all the different sorts of people along this trail.  Lots of foreigners that had their kids trouping along with them.  One of the most interesting groups was a group of 4 men, one of whom carried an umbrella (more like a parasol) to shield himself from the sun.

See the front of the dome that is blasted out...  Allie actually summitted the dome the day before with her Adventure Treks group.  They woke up at 3:00 am and walked straight up the back side of this dome and summitted the ridge at the back of the dome where the cloud is in the picture below.  If you look closely you can see the steam that still comes out of the cone in the middle of the dome...other than the steam the mountain has been quiet since 2008 or so.

You can see Mount Adams peeking out over the mountains in the background.

Most of the downed trees lay in the same direction, the direction of the blast that hit them.  You can see this in the 2 pics below...

This is the view from Harry's  Ridge.  This is Spirit Lake which was totally reconfigured by the eruption as it was in the direct path of the blast.

This is us at the top of the Ridge...

Monitoring equipment on top of the Ridge...

Mount Hood in Oregon as seen from the top of the Ridge..

Mount Adams from the top of the Ridge behind Spirit Lake...

No matter where I go I see those big black crows...they are going to take over the world one day!

A funky rock different from all the other rocks we saw along the trail...

I picked up a few rocks...

A view from the side of Mt. St. Helens as we were driving to Portland...  You can sort of see what Allie would have hiked up...

After leaving Mt. St. Helens we could not find a place to camp along the highway to Portland, so we went on into Portland and apparently got one of the only hotel rooms left around the airport area.  We had to pick Allie up at the Portland airport the next morning.  Having camped in our little tent the past 3 nights, we have to admit it was nice to get a shower in a real bathroom, sit in the hot tub, and sleep in a soft bed!