Cascades Vacation 1999

Chapter 4: Volcanoes

June 11: Mt. St. Helens

The drive up took us into the blast zone, where the entire forest was knocked down when Mt. St. Helens exploded 19 years earlier. There were plenty of logs to be seen all lying bleached white on the hillsides. In some areas, logging companies had replanted, but in other places there were no trees.

When we arrived, the observatory had not opened yet, so we had breakfast on the shore of Coldwater lake, and then returned to the observatory. From there, we had a pretty good view of the Crater, but we learned that the Boundary Trail was open (providing we were willing to hike over some patches of snow). This trail leads east along the ridge from the observatory to a point more directly in front of the crater. So we set out on the trail. There was some snow, but mostly it was clear. As we proceeded we kept getting better and better views for the first mile and half. At this point the trail turns away from the mountain, so I took several pictures. The first one looks directly into the crater from this spot due north of it. I enlarged the central portion of the crater which shows the lava dome, still covered in snow. The next picture shows the pumice plain that lay below us, and between us and the mountain. You can see a portion of the North Fork Toutle River.

Then, as we turned away from the mountain to continue further along the boundary trail, I took a picture toward the east, showing Spirit Lake and Windy Ridge viewpoint on the right. Windy Ridge is not open because of the snow-covered roads on that side of the mountain.

We continued until the boundary Trail intersected the Truman Trail. The Truman trail descends over 1000 feet onto the pumice plain, and crosses it, between the crater and Spirit Lake. We decided not to go any further because the way down looked a bit treacherous, mainly because of the snow. Steffi took a picture of me, and then we returned the way we came, enjoying the views just as much on the return.

It was starting to get cloudy as we left the observatory area, and headed back towards I-5. While at the observatory, we had also learned that the roads leading into the Ape Caves area, on the south slope of Mt. St. Helens were open. So we hoped to reach that area in time to get in. It's a long way because you have to go back to the interstate, drive south, and then re-enter the Mt. St. Helens area Forest Road 503. We were glad that the roads were open. We arrived at Ape Caves just in time for the last guided tour of the day.

Ape Caves are lava tubes. They have nothing to do with apes. They were named that way by their discoverers, some youngsters whose club was named "The Apes." Since we had never been in a lava tube before, this was a very educational experience. Like all caves, they are pitch dark. With a flash, we took one picture inside the caves. It shows the odd cross section. We learned that when the lava first coursed down what was probably a streambed, it melted the rock below it, and enlarged the cave downward by this process. Later, when the lava flow began slowing, the upper portion of the cave became filled with hot gas, and as the lava lowered in stages, it left shelves of rock at each level that it maintained for enough of an interval for the shelf to accumulate.

After we exited, we heard some more good news about road openings from the ranger at the Ape Caves Visitor Center, Forest road 25 had just been opened the previous day. This is the road that goes north up to Randle on the east side of the mountain. So we took the pretty road that runs along Swift Reservoir and then went north on the recently opened FR 25.

This road climbs into a lot of snow. When we were just past the highest point, we were driving along with steep vertical walls of snow on both sides of the road. It would have looked like the inside of a giant luge run, except that they had plowed down to the road surface. I parked the car in a turnout, and took a picture of it from a distance.

June 12: Mt. Rainier

Paradise VC is open all year, but the other Visitor Center at Sunrise is not even open until July because it is 1000 feet higher in elevation, and the road to it is still covered with snow. Even at this altitude, all of the trails are snow covered in June. So we put on snow boots and went for a hike on the snow. The ranger suggested that we go up towards Panorama Point, but it is a healthy climb on snow. We just wanted to climb enough to see if we could get some good views. The first surprise we had was the sheer number of people who were sharing the mountain with us that morning. It was a gorgeous day, and it happened to be Saturday morning. Weekends with good weather on Mt. Rainier are not all that common, I guess, because it seemed like half the population of Seattle was out there, taking advantage of this fabulous opportunity.

Most of these people were serious climbers, arrayed on the mountain in groups, each carrying lots of equipment. Climbing Mount Rainier takes three days. The first day, you climb to Camp Muir at 10,000 feet. That's where they all seemed to be heading. The photo shows a couple of these groups climbing on the snow up ahead of us, where it wasn't very steep yet. We poked along behind them.

Eventually the trail split. You couldn't actually see a trail, except for the footprints in the snow. Most of them were heading up to Glacier Vista, on the way to Camp Muir. We veered off to the right to stay on the trail to Panorama Point. The trail got very steep, no matter which branch you took. We had to climb this very steep hill. By the time we were part way up, we knew that if we could make it to the top, we would probably not want to go any further, out of fear of becoming too exhausted.

We did make it to the top, and were very well rewarded for our efforts. Looking back to the south, we could now see over the smaller Siskiyoot Mountains, and we picked out Mt. Adams on the left, and Mt. St. Helens on the right. Actually we also could see Mt. Hood in the distance, just to the right of Mt. Adams, but you can't make it out on the photograph. it was just too hazy.

So we stopped and I took all of these mountain pictures. While we were on the trail, we also saw a hoary marmot. We had seen a note in the Visitor Center that these animals were expected to make an appearance. Apparently, they were just then coming out of hibernation. They look like oversized groundhogs. That's not really surprising, because groundhogs are in the marmot family. I wish this specimen had stayed long enough for me to get a picture, but he disappeared long before I could get my camera out.

We also met some very nice people on the hike, including one fellow who was happy to take this picture of the two of us, at the top of our hike, approximate 6400 feet above sea level, and about 1000 feet above our starting point. You can see Mt. St. Helens in the upper left of the picture.

We didn't realize it yet, but we had made one important mistake in taking this hike. We had hats to protect us from the sun, but this was the first time we had spent so much time out on open snow. We should have used heavy sunscreen to protect ourselves from the reflected sunlight. We both wound up with sunburns from this hike, and were uncomfortable for a few days, even though we did not get any direct sunlight. We learned our lesson from this, and would do it again next time, but only when wearing adequate sun block.

We were pretty tired from all of that work. Hiking on snow is a lot harder than on trails. So we got back in the car and drove east on the Steven Canyon Road. This was the road that was closed because of the road damage caused by a rockslide when we tried to enter the park this way almost a week earlier. The road offers spectacular vistas in the canyon, and eventually meets up with SR 123. We took this road north until it joins SR 410. SR410 continues up through the Cayuse Pass, and then descends into Enumclaw, WA. We had thoroughly enjoyed our day on Mt. Rainier, and now we needed a few days of less strenuous activity. We headed for Tacoma, and Puget Sound.

[Intro] [North Cascades] [Oregon] [Pacific Coast] [Volcanoes] [Puget Sound]