September 22, 2009 – The East Side of Mt. St. Helens

Our travels today took us to the east side of Mt. St. Helens. We took Forest Road 25 thru parts of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We also checked out some of the other side forest roads – the trees are incredible!! Imagine pine and spruce, at least 50 feet tall, some with moss at the lower elevations and everything so quiet – WOW!

We turned on Forest Road 99 towards Mount St. Helens. Here is the map of the area we toured:

A view of Mount Rainer, which is only 35 miles from Mount St. Helens, as the crow flies:

And our first view of Mount St. Helens:

The smoke you see is actually dust clouds blowing off the mountain. At this point, we are 11 miles from the mountain and Bear Meadow is in the foreground. This is where those photographs of the mountain were taken when it first exploded. This is from the sign here:

As we drove further on 99, the lush forest ends abruptly:

A decision was made to let part of this forest come back naturally and another part to be logged and replanted. Here is the area that was replanted:

Our next stop was Spirit Lake:

I hope you were able to read the above – the lake level is now 200 feet higher than before the volcano erupted – WOW!

Yes, those are logs still in the water from 1980. When the avalanche surged into Spirit Lake, huge waves sloshed 800 feet up the surrounding hillsides, sweeping trees and debris into the lake – just imagine!!

And a final look at the mountain:

We had lunch at one of the pullouts with a great view of the Cascade Range and then headed back. And finished the evening with another great campfire – :-)