Mt St Helens

After the night in the brew pub Christine wasn't feeling so good, so we skipped our second day in the wineries and headed to Mt St Helens, a dormant volcano that had a major eruption in 1980. It was a fairly big drive with nice scenery along the Columbia River most of the way. After a few sight seeing stops we headed to the South side of the volcano for the night.

When we woke up the next morning, it was drizzly and overcast, our accomodation only had 5 tv channels and no weather channel, OMG! No worries, we hoped it might clear up in the afternoon.

Our plan for the morning was to visit Ape Caves which, unlike the name would suggest, has no Apes! The caves are a series of underground tunnels which were formed by the lava flow of the volcano. We thought we were so prepared, we had warm clothes on, had water, and our torches (there is no lighting in the caves).

We were soon disappointed. Our torches, which are about the sice of a AA battery, weren't exactly giving us a whole lot of light, especially Christines as the battery looked like it was about to die. We made it about 3 meters into the tunnel and couldn't see a thing!

Lucky for us, as we were about to leave, a guy from Oregon arrived who was uber-prepared, he had about 4 spare torches, and was happy to lend us a couple.

The actual tunnel went for about 0.5 mile. It was really quite amazing being in a cave without lighting or a guide, not a sound. The rock formations were great, in some parts the tunnel was about 10 meters high then it would split in two caverns, an upper and lower, which would be about 2-3 meters high.

Unfortunately when we returned to the surface the weather had not improved. We had lunch at a waterfall in Lava Canyon. Much of this track was closed after the viewpoint of the waterfall, due to weather damage. We also visited Ape Canyon (you guessed it, no Apes), which leads directly up to Mt St Helens. It was also carved out by mud, lava and land slides from the eruption. Dead trees still lye scattered through the canyon.

While we were sitting enjoying the view of the clouds in front of Mt St Helens, it started to rain, and then thunder and lightening, and then hail. We scurried back to the car.

Given the weather we gave up sight seeing and headed north. We found some accomodation in a tiny little cottage (but with a high roof), right on the silverwater lake.

The next day we headed up to the Mt St Helens observatory, which is the man part of the volcano that tourists visit. It was still overcast, cloud cover to 4000ft, which isn't ideal when you want to look at a volcano that is about 8000ft high. Still if we dont do it today, we probably never will do it, so up we went!

Mt St Helens isnt actually a national park (they actually call it a monument), we found that this makes it much more difficult to find out information about the place, and what to see and do while there. We did get a few hikes reccomended once we were actually at the observatory (cloudatory). We also got a weather update, thunderstorms expected after 11am, we found this out at about 10.50am!

While the recommended hikes were a lot longer than what we wanted, we decided to at least start some of them, try and get closer to the crater for a view. Our first walk initially headed up on an exposed, narrow and rocky track, thats what you want with lightening forecast. Our aim was to at least see Spirit Lake which is at the base of the volcano. After a bit over an hour we did get a decent view of part of the lake, but still no better views of the crater. While we wanted to continue on, we really didn't want to get too far from the observatory in case dark clouds rolled in over the lighter shade of gray clouds. About half way back we stopped and had our lunch, still with a view of the clouds in front of the volcano.

Back at the observatory we listened to a couple of really good presentations by a ranger (who's name i cant remember). Their was also some interesting exhibits in the visitors centre to look at.

After a few more stops heading back down the volcano, including another longish walk around the mud slides and debris from the eruption, we grabbed some burger patties and buns to BBQ for dinner down by the lake.

While we are both glad to have made it to Mt St Helens, we can't help but feel a but annoyed that in 2.5 days in the area we didn't actually get to see the crater. We do have a post card with it on it if any one wants to see...