Blogs from Mt St Helens, Washington, United States, North America

Advertisement

North America » United States » Washington » Mt St Helens September 10th 2020

Well, we got up early to a gorgeous morning. Love this campground, as it is very beautiful and peaceful. Of course, being we're the only two parties in the place, it would be peaceful anywhere I guess. After a great breakfast, we got off to an early start at 7:30. Pretty amazing getting John and Diane going this early. This is going to be the longest leg of our trip, taking in two significant areas, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Ranier. We started off going East on the Spirit Lake Highway. This takes you to a place called Johnston Ridge, which overlooks the Lava Dome of the Mountain, Spirit Lake, and the wasteland below the mountain caused by the eruption. What was fascinating is that there is still considerable volcanic action going on, with vents spewing ... read more
Smokey Vistas
Windy Day at Mt. St Helens
Entering Mt. Ranier Nat'l Park

North America » United States » Washington » Mt St Helens September 8th 2020

The beginning of our day was pretty leisurely. We got a late check out from the hotel, and after having breakfast, we vegged in our room until noon. A cab picked us up and brought us to the Cruise America rental location, and they processed us as soon as we arrived. We immediately left for the local Fred Meyers grocery store to stock up on our supplies for the next 9 days. Our grocery cart looked like we had 8 kids back at home we were trying to feed. After stowing everything away, we hit the road. Destination - TOTAL WINE store. Taking care of procuring our most important staples, we headed out once again, up US 5 for Toutle,WA. Traffic leaving the city was quite heavy, and just north of Portland, the smoke that is ... read more
Smokey Ride north
ECO Ranch Resort & RV Park
Cocktails with Friends


Mileage -219.5 Left a little later this morning and headed to Walmart for the last couple of things for the trip. We are trying to go thru most of our stuff but there were still a few things we needed for these last 2 days. We then fed Parker at the gas station. The first pump we tried was for flex fuel vehicles and Parker didn’t want that, so we found another. We then proceeded to Mt Saint Helens. I was working on the blog in the back seat until I lost internet, but I continued to work on the pictures. Our first stop was at the end of the blast zone. This was at a bridge. After that, as we drove in, everything was in the blast zone. Our next stop was shortly thereafter at ... read more
DSCF6127
DSCF6128
DSCF6102


Mileage – 278.9 This morning we had to buy breakfast at the Courtyard by Marriott. Seems on our road trips, we need to stay at the lower levels of the hotel chains. Oh well… last night’s noise was the car alarm that kept going off. Even on the 8th floor, I could hear it. I wonder what it sounded like on the lower floors. Our goal for the day was Mt Rainier. On the way, as we were heading into Tacoma, Susan says, we need to see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. For those of you who don’t know, google Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940s and watch the video. So we get there and drive across the new bridge. Wow, this is a MUCH wider span than any of us realized. We really wanted a side view of ... read more
DSCF5935
DSCF6006
DSCF6007


We slept in and were in no rush to go down for breakfast. We took our time and did our Sudoku Challenge. After a number of “DNF’s” Sharon did manage to put one in the Win-Column yesterday; and, I didn’t think my 85% was going to hold up for the Intricate Weekday challenge, but it did! Each puzzle on our “Enjoy Sudoku” app grades your performance as a percentile against others who have done the same puzzle, and depending on the level, this is usually in the many thousands of other players. Today we had the vague notion that we were going to drive up and see Mount St. Helens. It’s sort of like when we were on Maui and had the notion to drive up Haleakala to see the sunrise and I joked with Sharon ... read more
Opening to the Ape Cave
First road closed by snow
First road closed by snow

North America » United States » Washington » Mt St Helens September 19th 2014

Der Mt. St. Helens ist nicht unbedingt ein hübscher Berg, aber sehr interessant. Nach dem heftigen Ausbruch von 1980 sieht die Gegend um den Vulkan herum ziemlich karg aus. Besonders eindrucksvoll sieht man die Spuren der Verwüstung in nördlicher Richtung: die pyroklastische Wolke hat dort viele Meilen weit alle Bäume jeglicher Größe umgelegt - alle schön in derselben Richtung ausgerichtet. Außerdem hat der bis dahin kegelförmige Berg auf 300 Höhenmetern seine Kuppe eingebüßt und nach Norden die Flanke verloren. Von der richtigen Stelle aus kann man in den Krater hineinschauen und den neu entstandenen Lavadom sehen; wir hatten von unseren Wanderungen aus allerdings nicht den richtigen Blickwinkel. Einmal sind wir durch die Geröllwüste unterhalb des Kraterrands zu einem Wasserfall gelaufen, ein anderes Mal hinunter zum Spirit Lake. Das Besondere am Spirit Lake sind die Tausende von ... read more
Spirit Lake
Columbia River Gorge
Genau hinschauen: die Originalform ist mit einer weißen Linie eingezeichnet

North America » United States » Washington » Mt St Helens August 6th 2014

It's geography geek's day! We're off to Mount St Helens , one of numerous volcanoes in the Cascades range best known for the massive volcanic eruption that blew the side of the mountain away in May 1980. Grey damp weather as we drive up the interstate, leaving us huddling for warmth at a stop to buy gas, is mercifully replaced by clear sunny skies as we approach the mountain. It is a truly awesome sight. Outside the national park area, the region has been reforested, so views are limited by the tall stands of conifers. But within the park boundaries, no planting has been allowed, so you can see the varying rates of regeneration. When the volcano erupted, a huge section of the northern flank was blown out, smashing into the ridge several miles away and ... read more
Sara and Hannah
Mount St Helens
is it a man, is it a beast.....


Today we traveled nearly 400 miles round trip to see both Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier. We traveled 36 miles over the winding Routes 25 and 99 to the Windy Ridge lookout. Not for the faint of heart. Mt St Helens peak is just about 2.5 miles from the lookout and there are great views of Spirit Lake along the route. After 30 years you can still see the path taken by the blast as the trees fell in the direction they were blown. We got to the lookout in time to hear a Park Ranger talk about the events leading up to the blast in 1980 and the transformation since that time. An incredible story and an incredible sight. We headed back down the mountain and north to the west entrance of Mt Rainier ... read more
Mt St Helens
Mt St Helens
Mt St Helens


Today we hiked to a Silt Dam. This kind of dam we created to devert the ash silt away from the water flow. It was a nice 2 mile hike and the sun was even out most of the time. Sara and Lauren would be proud of how well I did on the uneven trails. You taught me well ladies...... read more
Dam meadow
Hike path 1
Hike path 2


A trip up to Mt. St. Helens National Park proved to be very interesting and beautiful. The day was simply awesome weather wise because it was not raining. As we headed up the mountain at 3,000 ft it still wasn't raining, but there was SNOW.. Yep, I said snow. We of course we had to stop and check it out. I did convince Joe is was not a good idea to bombard me with a snowball. Amazingly he resisted the temptation. It's a wonderful drive to the observation point where you can see Mt. St. Helens. Of course, it was overcast, so we didn't get to see the top of the dome. The regrowth was surprising to all of us and the scenery was gorgeous.... read more
Gerdes' Mt St Helen MP
Mt St Helen 2
Mt St Helen 3




Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 10; qc: 78; dbt: 0.0653s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb