Friday, June 28 We followed Route 504 (the Spirit Lake Highway) from our Silver Lake campground 60 miles along the Toutle Mountain Range and back to the ground zero Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Highway 504 was built to access the area after the blast, and 14 bridges had to be constructed. The largest, Hoffstadt Creek Bridge, is 370 feet high and 2,340 feet long. The Forest Learning Center offered the incredible story of the Weyerhaeuser Logging Company. They were logging the mountain at the time of the eruption and within four weeks afterwards they established research that showed that the ash was very low in nutrients for new tree growth. But, if seedlings were planted firmly in the earth, below the ash, they should grow. Weyerhaeuser spent two years harvesting the knocked over, branch-stripped logs . . . at the rate of 700 truck-loads a day! Then, they replanted, one by one by shovel, tens of millions of trees firmly down in the soil, to start new forest growth. Their efforts hastened the recovery of the wildlife and mountain streams. The next stop was the Coldwater Recreation Area, where a new lake was formed after the eruption. We had a lunch that we had packed and then did the 1-mile loop hike that meandered by trail into the forest, and by boardwalk out onto the lake. We reached our final stop – Johnston Ridge Observatory. The Visitor Center is situated facing the South side of the mountain where the lateral explosion took place. The surrounding mountain slopes still showed fallen trees, stripped of branches. Despite heavy cloud cover we could make out the crater that resulted from the blast. . . there is no top of the mountain to be covered by clouds any more! The exhibits inside were nicely done and the movie was excellent. I need to say that each observation/learning center has been a separate entrance fee, adding up throughout our two-day visit! Driving back down the hour trip to our campsite, we now had a pretty good idea of what happened on May 18, 1980. We could identify the impact area still with trees on the ground, the location of the former Spirit Lake at the base of St. Helens, the new Coldwater Lake and streams forged from the disruption, and the recent growths of forest planted so tediously by Weyerhaeuser . . all for a total understanding and picture. The one thing we both found strange was that there was no mention of molten lava flowing from the mountain – just a big blast of rock and ash.
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October 2021
We don’t go camping any more . . . we go ‘streamin’ ! The “SIlvermine and His” is our 2018 25' Airstream Serenity with Salsa interior and front twin beds., and ‘streamin’ is the name we use to describe our adventures. Stream along as we document everything from weekend trips to longer summer excursions and full-blown vacations. You know what they say: if you’re not in an Airstream – you’re just camping!
Tom & Ella Brown |