volcano!

Hello everyone!

I had a wonderful weekend camping and hiking up on Mt St Helens. Friday afternoon Jess and her brother Nick came over to my house and we finished packing up the car and hit the road. After backtracking down some Forest Service roads (vague directions in the woods are not useful) we arrived at our camp site at the Iron Creek campground in the evening. I was happy to find the place pretty well deserted and our site was nicely secluded and right along the Cispus River. We set up our tents and started a fire to get some coals going to cook our dinner over. We had bbq chicken, cheesy potatoes and zucchini all cooked in foil over the fire. We drank some beers and talked around the campfire. When it finally became dark there were zillions of stars. We watched some satellites zip by while the sound of the river flowed by in the darkness. We went to bed and I slept very well in my tent.

It was so wonderful to wake up Saturday morning and see out the tent window blue sky through the mossy trees. It was the beginning of a heat wave in the Northwest so there were no morning clouds to start the day. Nick made us fabulous pancakes for breakfast. They were definitely the best pancakes I’ve ever had while camping. We packed up some lunches and our daypacks and piled in the car to head for our hike. We drove about 20 minutes down a major Forest Service road then turned to go up to Windy Ridge. We were supremely irritated to find the main road to Windy Ridge was gated shut. Windy Ridge is one of three major observatories on the north side of Mt St Helens and both Johnston Ridge & Coldwater have been opened for over a month with one of them being at a higher elevation than Windy Ridge. Oh I was annoyed! There were lots of other people in the same predicament and the nearby sno-park parking lot was full of motorcylists and other people in search of a good Mt St Helens view who were all out of look. We drove back a ways and stopped to look at Iron Creek Falls and to decided what we were going to do with our day instead. We consulted our hiking book and found another hike further up the road. We were disappointed though because we wouldn’t be looking down into the crater of the volcano and hiking in the blast zone which was the whole point of camping on this furthest side of Mt St Helens.

The trail to Badger Lake was strewn was pumice (courtesy of that volcano we couldn’t see). It was pretty thick forest with steady elevation gain. The avalanche lilies were blooming as were the trilliums (which bloomed in Portland a good 3 months ago). We caught a few good views of the side of Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier to the north. The trail had clearly not been used this season yet as there were many downed trees across the path. We were within a quarter mile of the lake when suddenly we were in a snowfield and our trail lost under 3-4 feet of snow. We scouted around for a bit hoping to find it but keeping track of where we had come from so as to not be lost. The terrain was too steep, the snow too thick and the trail was just gone. We couldn’t find the lake and turned around defeated. We stopped to eat lunch on a log next to some snow and laughed that we had just hiked to nowhere. We hightailed it out of there wanting to get back to the comforts of our campsite. Back at the car it was scorching hot out. It was a quick drive back to the campground. We grabbed beers and snacks and pulled our camping chairs into the river where we sat with our feet in the freezing cold water. Our Saturday hike was indeed a bust…8 miles to look a snowfield. We cursed that stupid gate and plotted our return attack for the next day. We had stopped to buy fire wood from the camp host and I told her that road 99 to Windy Ridge was gated shut. On the map she showed me another Forest Service road that would also go to Windy Ridge. The map indicated the road was closed for repairs but she said other campers had gone up it earlier that day and had made it all the way to Windy Ridge. We agreed to try that road on Sunday morning.

We stayed down on the river until the late fell below the trees and then Nick started our fire. Jess and Nick prepared dinner of pork chops, corn on the cob and veggies cooked in foil. It was a fantastic meal and was topped off smores. None of us lasted very long as we were tired from our long hike to nowhere. We went to bed and woke up excited to get closer to that volcano. We made our way up Forest Road 26 which was mostly one lane on the side of a cliff. The views were incredible and we encountered mainly bicylists on the road with no other cars. It was quite obvious when you entered the blast zone as suddenly there was no forest anymore, or at least not a standing one. All the trees were flattened and splintered and destroyed. We stopped at the Miner’s Car viewpoint where there is a car that was crushed in the eruption. The miner and his wife were killed in their nearby cabin. This was still many, many miles from the crater. The destruction was massive.

We drove until the road ended at the Windy Ridge Viewpoint. There is a windy flight of stairs to the top of a nearby hill that you absolutely must climb if you’ve driven all this way. There is a small hill that slightly obscures the crater and as you walk up the hill the view becomes better and better. We could see Mt Adams to the east, Mt Hood to the south and Mt Rainier to the north, looming at the end of Spirit Lake. There were wildflowers growing amongst the piles of pumice and ash and blasted trees. The view into the crater is phenomenal. It was a perfectly clear day without a cloud in the sky. We marveled at the crater and looked down at Spirit Lake and it’s floating mass of logs. We got lots of hiking in around Spirit Lake so I’ll talk about that more later. We hiked back down to the car and drove a short ways down the road to the Harmony Falls Viewpoint. We hiked downhill through an area with many young alder trees growing. This created some welcome bits of shade as it was really getting hot out. The cliffsides around us were all covered in blasted trees and were just barely to begin regrowth. We walked across a pumice-filled plain and looked at the gaping crating aimed right down at us. This was certainly a bad place to be when the mountain blew. We reached the shore of Spirit Lake. The lake was severely changed by the eruption. It’s 4 miles from the crater and took a direct hit from the pyroclastic flows and the massive landslide. A huge wave sloshed 800 feet up the surrounding cliffs. You can see the waterline far up on the walls. A portion of the lake is filled with millions of floating logs. These are the trees that used to be the old growth forest that surrounded Spirit Lake. They’ve been floating around for 26 years and have been bleached white in the sun. We got right down to the shore line and stuck our hands in the water. It was surprisingly warm and we definitely considered jumping in for a swim despite the many signs telling us not to. We hiked back to Harmony Falls which was also drastically changed by the eruption and now is a very minor waterfall. It is water though in a very dry place and we welcomed it’s freezing snowmelt water. We found a tiny bit of shade from a shrub growing along the water and we relaxed to eat lunch. After eating we braved the hot hot sun to return UPHILL to our car. It was rough going. At the very start of the trail we had to climb across a patch of snow. We all grab fistfuls of snow and rubbed it all over our heads, our arms, our necks. The snow was a godsend and would continue to give us relief throughout the afternoon. Before we left a couple stopped at the viewpoint. We had seen only a few other cars up there that morning and these didn't look like people that would drive up freaky forest road 26. I asked them what road they came up and they replied "99". Apparently enough people complained and the Forest Service sent someone out to ungate the damn road. It would help shorten our long drive back home.

We left Harmony Falls and drove another short distance down the road to Independence Pass. This hike took us across blasted hillsides with trees just beginning to get going again. We crossed several snowfields which we pilfered snowballs from each time. We seriously would have gotten heat stroke were it not for the snow. We wouldn’t have been able to hike at all as it was so blazing hot and the lack of trees makes for a hot hot hike with absolutely no shade. We ended up at a viewpoint on the north end of Spirit Lake. We were about 1000 feet above the lake. I was totally amazed by the huge floating log mass. It’s impossible to explain how vast it was. The crater of Mt St Helens loomed at the south side of the lake. We ate some snacks and marveled at our surroundings. As we hiked back the mountain released small amounts of steam and gases. Make no mistake, Mt St Helens is still a very active volcano though they don’t expect any eruptions like the 1980 event anytime soon. She is rebuilding her lava dome though and is rather quickly filling in the massive crater left the major explosion. Less than a month ago the mountain sent up a steam and ash cloud 16,000 feet into the air. I would have been amazed and bit frightened to see such an event from our vantage point. I’ll take the small steam bursts thanks. We reached the trailhead and rested in the shade for a bit before getting in the car for the long ride back to Portland. Back home it was insanely hot (101 degrees on Sunday). Monday would get up to 102 and was the hottest June day in Portland EVER. Today is expected to top out at 90 degrees and then the 80’s for the rest of the week. Thankfully I have a friend with a pool. Sweet relief!

So that was my weekend up on the volcano. I’ll be very late with next week’s posting as I’m going up to Blaine/Bellingham/Vancouver BC with my sister and won’t be back in town until late Tuesday. Please let me know how you are and what you’ve been up to! I hope all is well!

Xoxo,
carolyn