Day 122 - Mount Saint Helens

Mount Saint Helens is sinister and wonderful. I spent the morning at Rainier watching the end of the British Open on my phone, then drove south to Saint Helens.

I arrived at the park's northeast entrance by early afternoon. A massive bulge of rock built up on the northeast side of the mountain before the 1980 eruption and then caused a tremendous landslide when the eruption started. I drove to the Windy Ridge at the end of the road, listened to a ranger describe before and after photos of the mountain, then hiked up to a high viewpoint.

You can see the circular ridge with a notch missing where the landslide occurred, the desert-like exposed right-side where the landslide blew away life and covered 15 miles of terrain with 150 feet of dirt and rock, the greenery that was on the lucky side of the eruption, and Spirit Lake which was covered by dirt and slime and fallen trees for years. The mountain was over a thousand feet higher before it erupted.

After taking in this wonderful viewpoint, I hiked in closer, toward the Lummit waterfall, near the crater opening. The hike went up a windy ridge, included views of Mount Adams, Mount Hood and Mount Rainier, and felt like walking on the moon. Rocky, lifeless, cool.

The 200 foot falls seemed to magically drop from the hot crater.

Spirit Lake with Rainier in background, see the trees still floating. The landslide rushed 450 miles an hour and pushed all the water out of the lake, uprooting all the trees, pushing everything up the hillside and eventually back down.

Saint Helens in dusk light.

I camped just outside the monument along a forest service road.

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