Today, after attending church services in Portland, we hit the road again and drove north into Washington to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Mt. St. Helens is about 50 miles northeast (as the crow flies) from Portland, OR and, as we found out on Saturday, it is easily visible from downtown Portland. But since we were driving and not flying it was a trip of about 111 miles and 2 hours to get there.
The monument area, covering 110,000 acres, was set aside in 1982 for research, recreation, education and to allow the environment to recover naturally after the devastating events of May 18, 1980, when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980.
Before the events started with a magnitude 4.2 earthquake on March 20, 1980, Mt. St. Helens had been quiet for about 123 years. Many people considered it to be dormant. Things escalated through April and early May with small eruptions and numerous small earthquakes. But at about 8:32am on May 18, 1980, the earth shook again and a "bulge" which had been growing on the mountain's north face collapsed and caused the whole side of Mt. St. Helens to slide downhill at speeds of 110-155 mph leaving behind a huge crater and resulting in an even bigger debris avalanche headed down the valley. A massive eruption followed with ash towering miles high. The end result was a loss of 57 lives, destruction of about 230 sq miles of forests (the shockwave from the eruption/blast knocked down mature trees up to 17 miles away!), destruction of 30 miles of roads & bridges, 3 commercial logging camps, and numerous houses and businesses. It also deposited hundreds of feet of ash and lava into the valley, changing the course of the rivers, damming up some and creating new lakes (Castle & Coldwater). Thirty-seven years later you can still see the effects when you look at Toutle Valley and it's riverine system. [Want more details: see Mt. St. Helens history]
As we have been finding out, most roads into and around these national parks/monuments are still closed for the winter. While we've been able to get into the visitor center at Crater Lake NP, the Timberline Lodge at Mt Hood, and the visitor center at Coldwater Lake in the Mt. St. Helens monument area, the majority of the roads to and around these "parks" are not yet open to traffic. The roads at Mt. St. Helens won't open until for another month (May 16th)! We're going to have the same issue tomorrow trying to get to Mt. Rainier NP.
Here are some pictures.
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| Mt St Helens from Portland, OR |
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| Mt St Helens & Castle Lake |
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| Mt St Helens |
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| Mt St Helens |
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Toutle Valley & River
- still recovering
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| Mt St Helens & Coldwater Lake |
Next up - Mt Rainier National Park (fingers-crossed).
That's all for now ..... Dan
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