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Published: September 29th 2009
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Word for the day is “fog”. We woke to find the little valley we were staying in socked in, where the day before there had been beautiful blue sky… Actually—knock on wood—we’ve had great weather up on this trip so far. We hoped for an early burn-off so we could get good views of Mt. St. Helens later in the morning. But at that point, we settled for a quick hike to the nearby mud flow still left from the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980, which the Eco-Park’s owner had suggested was a good intro to the Mt. St. Helens experience. It was quite impressive to see the destruction the mudflow had caused—acres of barren sandy mud with the burned out trees that were left standing in the distance. Apparently most of the devastation from the volcano was caused by the landslide activity which roared like an avalanche through the Toutle River valley, wiping out everything in its path.
After breakfast, we headed north towards the Johnston Ridge Observatory and Visitor’s Center, though the amazingly thick fog. It took quite awhile, but eventually we emerged, high enough to get our first “wow-inducing” look at Mt. St. Helens from the
Loowitz Viewpoint More jaw-dropping views followed at the Visitor’s Center, where we also watched the short video with incredible special effects of the eruption, which created a “you were there” experience. It was also very informative, dispelling some misperceptions about what actually happened on May 18, 1980. Rather than a lava spewing explosion from the top of the volcano, Mt St. Helens suffered a cave-in type collapse of one side of the mountain that initiated the aforementioned landslide, followed by a horizontal blast of hot rock and ash. The glaciers on that flank melted, adding more devastation as water and boulders roared downstream. Finally, a vertical eruption of ash—the one you always see in the photos of that day—lasted for 9 hours and was followed by more avalanches of pumice and hot gasses. There—you’ve had your science lesson for the day…
We finished our time at Mt. St. Helens with a bit of a hike out on the Boundary Trail from the Visitor’s Center for more spectacular views, before driving north to Mt. Rainier National Park in the early afternoon. We opted to drive in the Nisqually entrance in the southwest corner of the huge park, in order to
visit the Paradise area and see the historic Paradise Inn. Since we were staying just outside the northeast side of the park, we realized we’d probably not want to make the 50 mile/1 ½ hour drive back to Paradise again during our short stay.
There was so much fog as we approached the entrance, and we could see nothing of Mt. Rainier itself. The ranger joked they’d taken Mt. Rainier down for cleaning… Fortunately, as we drove up to Paradise we just barely got out of the “soup” and had our first glimpse of the jaw-dropping immensity of Mt. Rainier. It truly is spectacular! Lots of photo-taking ensued, then after a quick walk through the charming lounge area of the Paradise Inn, we headed for our lodging for the next 2 nights, the Alta Crystal Resort. After a loooong drive down a very winding road, we arrived to find quite pleasant accommodations—a compact set-up of kitchen area, bedroom, bathroom, living room with real wood-burning fireplace (and lots of wood). Very comfortable and just what we needed after our very rustic accommodations last night! Looking forward to exploring the hiking opportunities around the nearby Sunrise area of the National Park
tomorrow…
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