Lewis & Clark Trip Day 31: Washington Volcanos (6/7/2021)

Monday, June 7, 2021
Today we transition from the Lewis & Clark Trip to finishing our 2017 Alaska Trip. In 2017 we were prevented by wildfires from traveling south through British Columbia to Seattle to return home across the northern US.

Breakfast was from one of the many little stand-alone
drive-through coffee shops we have seen in the Northwest

~On 5/30/1999, Ada & Bert S saw Mount St Helens.~

Hoffstadt Bridge (1992) over Hoffstadt Creek that
marked the western edge of the blast zone from
the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens

An early glimpse of Mount St Helens in the
Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument

Forest Learning Center (1995) was closed, even the parking lot!

To get a better view, we took this path down

View from the Forest Learning Center

1999: View of Mount St Helens; no clouds sitting on top!

Found these steps to go back up

Elk Rock Viewpoint view of Mount St Helens

Castle Lake Viewpoint: Mount St Helens, where the
concavity is visible under the clouds

Loowit Viewpoint: Mount St Helens

Castilleja coccinea/Indian Paintbrush growing
in burned out tree stump

Heed the sign! (KSS)

Johnston Ridge Observatory (1997) is five miles from Mount St Helens

Mount St Helens is across a valley of a lava base and ash

Snowmelt rivers are carving their way through the ash

Nature has taken over, leaving very little evidence
of the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens

Loggers are harvesting trees planted since the 1980 eruption

A selfie with Sasquatch

Now we are on the road to Mount Rainier
National Park, with extremely tall conifers

Trees, trees, trees

Is this Carter's Falls?

A small roadside waterfall

Looking down on a glacial stream from Ricksecker Point

First real view of Mount Rainier

A high snowbank that has been plowed-through

Paradise Inn (1916)

See the people walking towards Mount Rainier?

Another plowed snowbank

Henry M "Scoop" Jackson Visitor Center (2008)

Glacial moraine

Fort Lewis Meriwether Lewis Memorial Park,
statue (2005, by John P Jewell) of Seaman
and Captain Meriwether Lewis

Statue (2006, by John P Jewell) of First
Sergeant John Ordway, is one of the first
statues recognizing a specific enlisted soldier

Stylized entrance to Fort Lewis, now Joint Base Lewis McChord

Next: Lewis & Clark Trip Day 32.