Thursday July 30 (Mount St Helens)

My goodness, I am so lucky, it was yet another beautiful day today and was perfect for viewing Mt St Helens, our destination for today. We had another fairly late start due to a very late night again!

On the way we saw many views of Mount Rainier as well. The car has a power outlet in the back so I am able to keep my IPad charged up. 

This is great as I take it every where due to the fact that, in the USA, it is my phone as well. It also means that I make notes for my blog as we travel, this means it is simply a case of copy and paste and then inserting some photos. It certainly saves time at the end of a very long day!!

We saw some glorious views of Mount Rainier again and finally caught a glimpse of Mt St Helens. We turned of I5 and headed into the park. 

We caught several views of the mountain as we climbed, passing both the 1,000 foot and 2,000 foot elevation markers. We stopped at the Forest Learning Centre and there were some magnificent views of the valley that was devastated as well as the mountain.


Inside the centre there were exhibits of before and after. Many of the trees that were planted after the event were planted one by one by hand.

 We carried on climbing, passing the 3,000 foot elevation marker and stopped at a viewing place. There were some incredible views showing the devastation as well as the growth that has occurred since 1980. The crater that was formed by the explosion was clearly visible. The temperature outside was 102 degrees!! We then journeyed on to the Johnson Ridge Observatory.

The road dropped down quickly and followed the valley floor for a distance before the final climb up to Johnson Ridge. We had dropped below 3,000 feet but soon climbed above it again. We saw many different formations of ash alongside the road. We could see that the mountain is steaming slightly as we passed the 4,000 foot elevation marker. We reached the parking lot at the ridge and the temperature had dropped to 84 degrees.

We ate our lunch in the car before heading off to the observatory. While eating we spied a chipmunk on a tree stump next to the car. We then made our way over to the observatory to be met with wonderful views. We spent our time outside enjoying the views and taking lots of photos.

I also chatted to a couple of the Rangers and one of them was in New Zealand in December, she did the Tongariro crossing, a tramp/trek that takes people through the pass between two of the the volcanic cones in the centre of the North Island. She climbed to the summit of Mt St Helens on Monday and said the colours on the back of the dome are beautiful, with lots of orange and white streaks.

What looked like steam rising out of the Mount was in fact ash being blown off the surface. I then walked up an incline to another view point. Spirit Lake can be seen quite clearly although the bulk of the lake is hidden by a ridge. Approximately 1300 feet was lost off the mountain during the explosion and about 7% has been added back to the dome inside the crater. There is also a small glacier that has partly wrapped itself around the dome.

I came down from the view point and could not find Cheryl and Jim so I went back to the car. I sent a text to Cheryl but there is no service up at the top, lol!! I saw Jim straight away when I went back up so all was well. I now really need to again watch the film that was made based on the disaster.

We then headed home, another long drive for Jim, and the countryside looked so lovely in the early evening sunshine. There always seems to be a golden glow at this time of the day and everything looked so calm and peaceful. We were aiming to have dinner at Famous Dave's Restaurant in Tacoma. As we were approaching Tacoma we passed a lot of military, the National Guard was on the left of the highway while on the right, there were Army and Air Force Bases. There were military planes flying around, obviously practicing touch downs.

Once I had ordered I went outside to see if I could get a photo of Mount Rainier at sunset. The planes were still flying overhead and I did indeed see Mount Rainier with the moon above and to the left of it, what a wonderful sight. I had the wings for my dinner and as we left, in full darkness, we could still hear the planes flying round. 

After a visit to Walmarts for some supplies, we finally reached home, late again, after another long but very enjoyable day.