We don’t seem to have a lot of luck with volcanoes! Last year in Hawaii we stayed in a crater view room overlooking the Kilauea volcano, most of the time we were there the crater was hidden behind thick fog. Yesterday, Mt Rainier, an extinct volcano, stayed “In” and didn’t let us see its summit. Today we had a continuation of the theme…
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| May 18 1980 |
Today’s major sightseeing activity was a visit to the Mount St Helens National Historic monument. At 8.32 am on May 18 in 1980, Mt St Helens blew its top. Hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland , massive mudslides obliterated the Toutle river valley. Scores of homes were destroyed and 57 People were killed.
We were looking forward to our visit to the Johnston Ridge Visitor Centre which overlooks the north side of the volcano, and is located where David Johnston , a young geologist, was killed by the blast. When we left our hotel this morning, the sky was overcast, but there were patches of blue sky and sunshine.
The breeze blowing there gradually grew to a stiff wind that blew the first of the fall foliage down across the road in front of us as we drove through the thick forests. It’s easy to see why they call it the Fall!
After we entered the blast zone, 11 miles from the mountain, we noticed the landscape changing. The old growth forests gave way to much younger stands of trees that had been planted after the eruption. However, as we neared the summit the young forests petered out and we saw the bare hills with only scattered saplings and hundreds of dead stumps, the only remnant of the original forests.
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On the approach to the Mountain you can see the regrowth
amongst the dead stumps
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The wind grew wilder and wilder and the cloud dropped lower as we climbed to the ridge. At the parking lot we layered up under down jackets and raincoats and really struggled against the wind to reach the haven of the visitor centre. They were also suffering, the weather was causing power surges so they were running on generator power.
Unfortunately, Mt St Helens had decided that , like Mt Rainier, it was going to hide the bulk of its summit under the thick cloud. We did manage to see the very bare lower slopes that were the result of the massive landslide from the eruption, but that was all.
The visitor centre had some really interesting displays about the eruption and the work being done to try to predict them. While we were in the centre the rain blew in and totally obscured the views so we decided to give up on a walk around the top of the hill and head back to the car. 30 minutes later we were back in bright sunshine ( argh!) but looking back we could see that the mountain was still under cover.
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| We couldn’t see much of the mountain |
Here’s a video of me creating a small earthquake in the Visitor center at Mount St Helens. Click here to view it if you don’t see it below.
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| State Number 28 for us!! |
So, we made off south along Interstate 5 towards Oregon. The border crossing was across the Columbia River where I managed to capture a picture of the “Welcome to Oregon” sign. We have just knocked up our 28th state!
Oregon is one of only 5 states in the USA that doesn’t impose a sales tax so we couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a little shopping before heading to the hotel. We did well at Walmart and managed to pick up 2 pairs of Converse shoes for Liam for less than the price of 1 pair at home. Score!!
For dinner tonight we are going to try Shari’s Pies, an American family chain restaurant that we haven’t come across before. it probably won’t be flash but it’s conveniently located out the front of our hotel. I’m hoping to try Huckleberry Pie on this trip as it seems to be a local icon of the northwest.
Postscript: I was too full for pie! Those American serves are just so big 🙂