Mt. St. Helens

Linda on the Tieton  River.

We met up with Steve and Jodi; they were sitting in their 5th wheel in the Super 1 parking lot. Once we filled up the rigs with fuel, we drove south on Canyon Road (821). Canyon Road follows the Yakima River and eventually connects with Highway 12 leading up and through Naches. Highway 12 splits and becomes 410, but at that junction, we remained on 12 and started following the Tieton River up to our night's campground called The Willows.

I have boated the Tieton River four times. It's a great day trip!

There were no other camping rigs at The Willows when we arrived and we actually had the entire campground to ourselves for the night. We spent the evening exploring around the campground and surrounding area. Steve made a fire and we sat outside and took in the mountain air. After the sun was gone and darkness had shrouded camp, we played a few games of cards and then went to bed.

Rainbow over White Pass.

2:04 AM... "A MOUSE!!! THERE IS A F-ING MOUSE IN THE CAMPER AND IT JUST JUMPED ON ME!!!" Needless to say, I was awakened by Linda from a very deep sleep when a little mouse (Linda here - I still think it was close to a 10-pounder) decided to walk across her foot. Pandamonium took hold of our quiet night's sleep. The mouse made a hasty exit off the counter and down into the bowels of the oven.

Nothing I could do at this time, so I went back to sleep. Linda, on the other hand, stayed up most of the night making sure the mouse didn't return and climb in bed with her.

In the morning Linda went for her run and I checked my mouse traps in the hidden areas deep behind the drawers of the kitchen cabinets. When I pulled the drawer out from its place beneath the oven, I found our little guest stuck to the surface of the TomCat glue trap that I keep open and ready. Since Linda was out getting her exercise, I took the trap and the mouse out to the trash bin and disposed of the critter.  When Linda returned, she was relieved to know that our guest had decided, the hard way, to not stay in our mobile home.

The next day we drove over White Pass and dropped down Highway 12 where we connected various roads to the little town of Toutle, WA. Just past Toutle, we found our next campground at Harry Gardner Park. Set up was a breeze and as soon as we could, we loaded into Steve and Jodi's truck and drove the Spirit Lake Highway (504) up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory located at the very end of the road.

These elk were over 1000 yds. away. Good telephoto, I'd say!

Mt. St. Helens! What can you say? We arrived at the observatory just as the sun melted away most of the mountain fog and we were treated to warm sun and beautiful panoramas. We took in the information provided describing the events when the mountain exploded. It is so hard to visualize the damage caused by the eruption. The info center does a wonderful job of explaining the events of that May 18th day. Now the entire panorama is green with forest growth and many areas look as if nothing happened.  It is amazing how the earth healed itself and has returned to magnificent normalcy. However, the evidence of this cataclysmic episode is still visible. Once again we were in a place where pictures just can't do justice to the spectacle.

Back at camp Steve and Jodi fed us a great burrito bowl meal and we played cards once again.

The next day our exploration took us south and then out Highway 503, through the town of Cougar and up to the Lava Canyon hiking trail. We pulled in just as four school buses unloaded for a field trip. Just our luck.

We hiked the trails of the area and were able to, sort of, avoid all the loud chatter of the school kids. It was a very unique area and we really enjoyed the views created by the lava flows and the water that shaped them. It was too bad that we could not hike the suspension bridge due to it being closed. That would have given us some interesting views of the water and rock.

Our final stop was at the Trail of Two Forests hike. This is a wooden boardwalk that winds through an area where a lava flow moved through a wooded area leaving round holes in the rock surface where the trunks of large trees had been. The tree trunks either burned out of the lava flow or rotted after the lava had hardened. These holes were much bigger than the holes we visited in Craters of the Moon National Park, but they were created much the same. I climbed down into one and Linda said I looked very natural down there. Go figure.

Back at camp we started gathering weather information and found that there was a huge storm heading into the Idaho panhandle area. It looked like our home might get a bunch of snow and that we might be able to get home before the bulk of the weather hit if we left the next day. With this in mind, we got up the next morning, said goodbye to Steve and Jodi (they were planning to move on to the Portland area) and hit the road heading home, back over White Pass.

All went well on our long drive home. The wind was harsh and I was beat when we got home, but we really didn't have much snow until just outside Spokane so that worked out well.

Mt. St. Helens from the observatory.

Falls at Lava Canyon.

The bridge we couldn't cross.

Troll in da hole!