Monday September 8, '14

We had a wonderful couple of days on the south side of Mt. St. Helens.  We stayed at Lone Fir in the town of Cougar, across the road from a beautiful lake.  The campground is a nice RV resort with motel rooms, cabins, RV and tent sites, a pool, laundry facilities, and a cafe.  We just flaked out when we arrived Saturday afternoon.  We got the lawn chairs out, set up a little table, split a large bottle of great beer--Hefe (ginger, honey, and wheat)--and watched the recreating world pass by.  Boats of all varieties, and RVs of all varieties.  The resort holds the climbing register for people who plan to climb St Helens (climbers must go up the south face) so we got to check out some climbers too.

Sunday we spent the day seeing some of the interesting sites on the south side of the mountain.  We drove east and up in elevation and started at the Ape Caves, which are lave tubes formed when the hot lava ran down the mountain through a tube of cooling, solid lava.  You are required to be carrying lights and have a warm jacket.  The National Forest Service will loan you a Coleman lantern with a 2-hour propane tank.  And they give you a few strike-anywhere matches.

Cher and I had head lamps and a hand-cranked flashlight (thanks, Gina!) and we figured we were in great shape.  We started down the metal (see-through tread) stairs, which started out by dropping us down about 25 feet before we arrived at a ledge of stone.  We crossed the really uneven stone, turned on our headlamps, and started down the next section of stairs.  By the time we got to the bottom of the cave it was pretty dark!  We went downhill in the lava tube instead of uphill, because it was supposed to be the easier route.  Didn't take long before we were in total darkness!  We realized that two headlamps and a crank-up flashlight were not going to cut it!  Besides, despite the claims, the floor was very rough going and neither of us were prepared for that shoe-wise.  We stopped to take a bunch of pictures and headed back up-slope for the climb up to ground level.  We were both so glad we had seen some of the cave--and rather proud of ourselves!

Here we are emerging from Ape Cave.  Yes, we are proud of ourselves!  Notice Cher's new Dansko clogs--they did a good job!

A strange vein of some mineral that filled up a crack in a side wall.

This is looking straight up inside where it was very dark.  The tube has very interesting curves in the roof as though several flows of lava went through it.

From Ape Caves we continued east around the south side of St Helens to see an area that received lahar flows (2004 to 2008, I think) and stopped several times to look and take pictures.

You can see the deposited rock and ash through the vegetation.
Plant growth is slow but sure.  The area is very stark but very beautiful!

In this closer shot you can see the outflow plain and the browny-green
very low growing plant life it supports.

Our road passed a mostly dry river bed that had cut down through a series of layers of ash.  Here's a shot of that too!

You can see the exposed rock in the bed of the river.
And how young most of the trees are!

The layers of ash stand out pretty clearly.

We drove to the end of the road to see the overlook of Lava Canyon but were unable to get into the parking lot due to the jammed up parking of an RV and a van with a large bike rack.  We backed out, turned around in the parking lot's entrance, and headed back toward Lone Fir and home for the afternoon.

On the way "home" we stopped at the dam on Lake Merwin to take a look at the lake  and the dam.  Water is released by the dam into a channel where the water again drops through a set of turbines to generate electricity.

You can see the dam on the right side of the picture.

Today, Monday, we drove east and south from Cougar and followed the Wind River down a web of back roads to the little town of Carson in the scenic area of the Columbia River Gorge.  We drove east along the Washington side of the Columbia River to the area of Maryhill, where hiway 97 crosses the Columbia into Oregon.  We are staying at Peach Beach, which is a great RV camp in a Working peach orchard right on the banks of the river.  After dinner tonight we walked about 50 yards down a little slope to the river bank for  sunset and moonrise.

Moon rise, up the Columbia River.

Sunset looking down the Columbia.  The lights are the bridge across the river going south to Oregon.

Good night all!  We're off to Maryhill Museum and the Yakima Nation Cultural Center and RV park tomorrow!



al;sdkjfh

September 6, '14

Myrtle, Livy, and I am camping with my friend Cher down on the flanks of Mt. St. Helens.  We just spent two days on the north side, completely out of any internet or cell phone connection, so we are sitting in a parking lot next to I-5 to do a quick catch up before we head down to the south side of St. Helens for a few days.

We started the trip from my home in Duvall at about 9:30 am on Thursday and took some back highways down to catch I-5 in Tacoma.  By lunch we were at the hiway 504 turnoff.  After a quick lunch we headed up to our Kid Valley RV Camp to claim our reserved campsite, then drove up to the Johnson Observatory to see the results of the eruptions that began May 18, 1980.  We spent a couple of hours taking pictures, listening to ranger talks, and viewing the film about the eruption.  I noticed that the stream beds in the outflow plain below the caldera are deeper than they were 4 years ago, the last time I visited.

The calder from Johnson Observatory at 3 pm

The same view at 6 pm

The outflow plain where rocks, water, ash, and mud flowed out of the side of the mountain.

We could see a corner of Spirit Lake around to the north east, but only when the ranger pointed it out.  The floor of the lake is now 140 feet higher than it used to be.  the lake is half as deep and covers twice the area it covered before the eruption.

On Friday the 5th we drove part of the highway back toward Johnson Observatory and visited the visitor centers and overlooks.  We got some great views of the Toutle River valley and some interesting information about what happened and when.  We also did a little shopping--we were pretty restrained.

This looks down the Toutle River Valley.  The tree with the cones is a
 Noble Fir--thousands were planted within a few years following the eruption. 

Looking up the Toutle River Valley.  Over my shoulder you can see St Helens is
wearing a bit of thin cloud this morning.  Thanks for the picture, Cher!

A telephoto shot of the valley and mountain.  You can see that the river wanders all over the valley, changing channels frequently.

Friday night we ate dinner at Patty's Place, a great old log building in beautiful condition that is just a short walk from out RV park.  We sat on the back deck, looking out on the Toutle Valley at a bend in the river.  I only had my phone with me, so I'll have to email the picture to myself to get it into the blog--later.

Cher made her second full day of RVing with great delight.  She had we take a picture of her with her headlamp (flashlight that is attached to an elastic band around your head and sits in the middle of your forhead).  She is sending that picture to her folks, and I'm sure she won't let me have a copy--and I'm sure she'd kill me if I shared it!

As I said, today we are heading down I-5 to take hiway 503 to the south side of the mountain.  We will stay at Lone Fir RV Resort, where climbers register for the climb to the summit.  We will spend a couple of days exploring the Ape Cave lava tube and a lahar (mud-flow) overlook.  Then we are heading south down through the Cascades along Wind River to the Columbia River Gorge.  Hopefully we will be able to connect with the net again when we are out of the mountains.