Mt. St. Helens

Check out the photo gallery that accompanies this post about Mt. St. Helens.

On 2 July, 2006, Adam, Ildiko, Liz, Hannah, and I hiked around Mt. St. Helens. It was a short day trip, but we worked in an 8 mile hike and got to watch 2 videos depicting the 1980 explosion. If you don't know what happened in 1980 on Mt. St. Helens, check out this video. Additional details available here and a longer one, here.

We stopped briefly at the Coldwater Ridge Visitors' Center but proceeded quickly to the Johnston Ridge Observatory. After learning a bit about the history of the area, we set out along the Boundary Trail for Spirit Lake. All the trails to the actual volcano are currently closed so we could not get very close.

After 3 miles of passing other hikers , we turned off on Harry's Ridge Trail to get as close to Spirit Lake as we could. As far as I can tell, there is no way to actually approach the lake without breaking the park rules. We rested for a bit at the top of that trail and cooled off in the wind ripping around the area.

What can I say? We were cool!

Spirit Lake was fantastic. After the volcano erupted, this lake actually ended up hundreds of feet higher and much shallower as debris filled the bottom. The water was initially pushed up the far shore from St. Helens and carried all those trees back down the hill as it receded.

I guess it took us around 4 hours to make the nearly 8 mile hike. They always seem much longer than claimed. Adam and I have done our share of walking, running, and biking and feel pretty confident about our ability to estimate distances. We remain incredulous that it was only 8 miles. Definitly seemed like more. Certainly felt like more considering how many vistas we found.