Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Pacific Northwest September Travelog #9
Mount St. Helens National Monument - Sun, 4 Sep 2022, 12pm

Sunday morning we drove from our hotel in Vancouver, WA to Mount St. Helens. We've been to the park a few times before, but in different areas. Four weeks ago we visited Windy Ridge, on the east side. Years ago we visited Lava Canyon and its waterfalls on the south side. But until today we'd never visited the main part of the park, the Johnston Ridge Observatory. Oh, we tried once, several years ago. The mountain was all socked in with clouds. Sunday this past weekend was the clearest looking day in the weather forecasts for our three day trip, so we chose it for a visit. Our planning paid off with beautiful, clear weather most of the day.



The photo above is a view of Mount St. Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory. From this spot you see the northwest face of the mountain, the area where it blew open in a violent eruption in 1980.

The observatory was built in 1997 near the camp of volcanologist David Johnston, one of several scientists who perished in the explosion. Some people might sneer at Johnston's death as, "If he's such a smart scientist, why was he standing on a volcano that was about to erupt?" Understand that a) this spot is 4 miles away from the center of the crater and up a mountain. Such was the force of the eruption that the top of this ridge was scoured bare. And b) the field work of brave scientists like Johnston at Mount St. Helens contributed greatly to our understanding of volcanic eruptions. Scientists today are able to predict with much greater accuracy when and how other volcanoes will erupt, helping improve the safety of people who live nearby.

One of many things that's interesting in this scene is the river flowing down from the volcano. At this time of year many streams run dry. This one is fed by melt from a glacier that formed in the crater after the eruption.



Here's a zoomed-in shot of the inside of the crater (above). There are not one but two lava domes inside it. They formed at different times since the 1980 eruption. It's hard to understand scale in this photo, but those domes are 800' high. The whole mountain used to be 1300' taller than the rim of the crater... that's how much rock came rushing down the mountain as part of the eruption.

Also, all the clouds you see inside the crater are steam. Yes, the area is still volcanically active.

Anyway, we weren't here just to visit the observatory. We were here to hike.



From the observatory there's a great hike out along Johnston Ridge to the east, leading to Devil's Point. It's around the nose of that bald ridge you see in the middle ground of the photo above. That's where we're going this afternoon.

Beyond that bald ridge you can see a snow-capped peak peeking up. That's Mt. Adams, elev. 12,281 ft (3,743 m). On the right beyond the ridge you can see part of Spirit Lake. Beyond Spirit Lake is Windy Ridge. That low saddle point in the ridge above the lake is where I began climbing 439 stairs to Windy Ridge last month.

More to come....

Pacific Northwest September Travelog #11
Vancouver, WA - Sun, 4 Sep 2022, 9:30pm

Day 2 of our three-day weekend trip to Washington has been another tiring day, much like Day 1. Today we visited Mount St. Helens National Monument. Yes, we were at Mount St. Helens on our previous trip just four weeks ago. But that was at Windy Ridge, on the east side. Today we visited the west side. Mount St. Helens is one of those awesome parks where there are multiple entrances and the only way between them is to hike. (I can only think of two others in the US like that, Pinnacles National Park and the Grand Canyon.)

Our main event at Mount St. Helens was hiking the ridge trail from the Johnston RIdge Observatory around to Devil's Point. It was 4+ miles of nonstop 360° views, including of the volcano's ravaged north face. After that we two-fer'ed the trip with a visit to Coldwater Lake, a large lake that was created 42 years ago when debris from the volcanic explosion dammed a creek. Then we three-fer'ed it with a hike on the Hummocks Trail, winding around small hills that are actually pieces of the volcano transported several miles away during the explosion.

We wrapped up our time at the park at 5:30. With the drive home and a stop for dinner en route we returned to our hotel a bit after 8pm. We'll likely be in bed by 10 (at least I will likely be in bed by 10, Hawk might be later) making it easier to rise early tomorrow morning for a busy Day 3 before we have to fly home in the evening.

Updates: added links

439 steps. That's the answer to the question you might have asked in my previous post, looking up at the staircase ascending Windy Ridge. There are 439 steps in the staircase. I was concerned for a bit it might be like climbing the Koko Head Tramline in Hawaii, which left me wrecked for several days, but it was way easier. Partly that's because I set a deliberate pace of stopping every 25 stairs for a short rest. Plus, that made it easier to keep count of the steps. 😅



Stopping every 25 steps also made it easier to appreciate the views around me. As I ascended the views of Mount St. Helens just kept getting better. BTW, the clouds in the crater are steam rising from volcanic activity. This volcano is not dormant, it's just... resting.



Also as I ascended, other volcanoes came into view. Looking east over the flank of Windy Ridge I could see Mt. Adams, a 12,280' stratovolcano. It looks like it's nearby... it's actually 35 miles distant.

Yes, there are a  lot of volcanoes in the area. We're in the Cascade Range, which is volcanic. It's part of the "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean.



Speaking of other volcanoes, Mt. Rainier makes an appearance from atop Windy Ridge, too. It's a 14,410' stratovolcano. From here it's 50 miles away.

"What's at the back end of that lake?" you might ask. "Is it a beach?" First, that's Spirit Lake. Second, it's not a beach, it's actually a huge spread of dead trees floating in the water.

When Mount St. Helens exploded in 1980 it unleashed a torrent of rocks and hot gases that swept at speeds of several hundred miles per hour across the ground. The blast flattened everything in its path at least 8 miles out. The blast swept down the northern flank of the mount, across Spirit Lake, and up the ridge on the far side. That ridge was forested with huge fir trees. They were shaved from the ground like hair under a razor. What's left of them floats at the north end of the lake as a debris floe.



Soon enough it was time to head back. 439 steps down!

Oh, and in the distance to the south I saw one more volcano, making this a four-volcano viewpoint. I wasn't sure which mountain it was because I didn't have a big enough map handy. It turns out it was 11,249' Mt. Hood, in Oregon, roughly 60 miles away. Yes, I definitely needed a bigger map for that!

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #2
Puyallup, WA - Fri, 5 Aug 2022, 11:30pm

Whew, it's been quite a day of hiking in Washington! I'd say we began by getting up bright and early but we didn't. After only getting to bed at 2am after a late night arrival last night we were in no mood to get up with our 6:30/6:45am alarms. I swatted the snooze on mine a few times then turned it off entirely. I got up at the crack of 9:00.

From there we ate breakfast in the room, showered, and packed our bags for the day. We checked out and headed out to Covel Creek Falls, about 90 minutes east and around the far side of Mount St. Helens. The trail at Covel Creek is a 4 mile semi loop trail. I believe the technical term is lollipop.

The Covel Creek Trail climbs about 1,000' and visits two waterfalls: the eponymous Covel Creek Falls and Angel Falls. Covel Creek Falls is awesome because it's about 80' tall and the trail goes behind it. Angel Falls is awesome because while it doesn't look like much from the main trail, a short spur trail leads back 100' in the canyon to a spot where you can appreciate that Angel Falls is a really a 100'+ tall wet wall; moss draped bare rock with many rivulets of water running down it.

Hiking Covel Creek took us a few hours and consumed a lot of our energy. With so many other worthy things to hike in the area we weren't ready to throw in the towel, though. As long as there's light, as long as there's energy, we hike.

Just around the corner from Covel Creek Trail was the trail for Camp Creek Falls. It was mercifully short, just 1/2 mile round trip, so we could manage hiking it on the heels of Covel Creek. Camp Creek was flowing strongly. It put on quite a display as it poured down a 60' cascade.

Our next stop was a fair drive away: Windy Ridge in Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It was just after 5pm by the time we arrived at the Windy Ridge parking lot, at the end of the road that comes in from the northeast side. Mt. St. Helens itself was still a few miles beyond us, but we were close enough that we could see a wisp of smoke rising from its bore. Windy Ridge, tho... Windy Ridge is a hilltop reached by a staircase up from the parking lot. There are four hundred thirty-nine stairs to get to the top. Guess how I know. From the top I could see not only Mt. St. Helens a few miles to the south but also Mt. Adams to the east and Mt. Rainier to the northeast. Both are still capped with snow in August.

Our final stop, at least our final stop hiking-wise, was at Iron Creek Falls. We passed it on the way up to Windy Ridge and decided to hike it afterwards, time permitting. Well, I don't know if time really permitted, but we decided that since nobody was checking time permits we'd just do it. It was an easy 1/4 mile walk. The falls shoot out of a chute and drop about 25' into a nice bowl. And the water really does shoot. It projects almost 20' out from the rock lip.

On our drive from there to Puyallup, our stop for the night (and tomorrow night, too), we stopped in the small town of Morton for dinner. We ordered burgers and fries at an order-at-the-window type restaurant. We sat on the porch and ate our dinner until the sun was almost down.

Now we're in Puyallup. We reached the hotel around 10:40. I took a quick soak in the hot tub followed by a hot shower. Together those sluiced off the dirt and sweat I felt covered with and loosened my tight muscles. Now I'm unwinding before bed to get ready for another full day tomorrow.

Update: Saturday we do "Ring Around Rainier" with visits to several more waterfalls!

Update 2: I've written blogs about the four hikes we did on Friday:

• Covel Creek
• Camp Creek Falls
• Windy Ridge at Mount St. Helens
• Iron Creek Falls