Friday, 9/20/2013, Hood River, OR, to Dupont, WA, via Mt. St. Helens

Good morning!  We have another long day of driving in order to get to Mt. St. Helens and position ourselves for a short drive into Seattle on Saturday, 9/21.  Today’s route will end up putting about 275miles on the SUV today.  The weather looks great but, was forecast to degrade as the day when on.

Checked out of the hotel and was on the road by 0730.  Our first waypoint would be Camas, Washington, on the Washington state side of the Columbia River.  GPS routed us back along the I-84 and took us back across the ‘Bridge of the Gods’ at Cascade Locks.  This time instead of turning right onto Hwy 14, we went left.  Hwy 14, much like Rt. 30 in Oregon, hugs the Columbia River all the way over to Vancouver, WA.  Camas was about 50miles from Hood River.  We did make a photo stop along the way when we came abeam of the Vista House on the Oregon side before continuing on into Camas.  We lingered in Camas to get some cash out of a BoA ATM followed by a pit stop at a McDonald’s for a restroom break and breakfast.  Left Camas via Hwy 14 headed for our next waypoint, Kelso, WA, until it intercepted I-205 which we merged onto northbound.  Another 50miles or so from Camas to Kelso.  I-205 intercepts the I-5 just north of Vancouver.  Coming out of Portland the I-5 follows the Columbia River northwards until Kelso where it bends back westward towards the Pacific.  Castle Rock was 10 miles beyond Kelso.  All of the online planning we’d done re: getting to Mt. St. Helens, recommended getting up to Castle Rock and taking Spirit Lake Highway, Rt. 504, east to the Johnston Ridge Observatory facing the blown out north face of Mt. St. Helens.  So, that’s what we did.  The ~55miles to the Observatory felt a lot farther than we’d expected, particularly with some of the very slow speed areas once drives through.

Side Note:  Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake was completed in December 1986 at Silver Lake, about 30 miles (48 km) west of Mount St. Helens and five miles (8 km) east of Interstate Highway 5. By the end of 1989, the Center had hosted more than 1.5 million visitors.  The Visitor Center at Silver Lake opened in 1987, and is now operated by the Washington State Park System. Exhibits include the area's culture and history, and the natural history and geology of the volcano and the eruption, including the recovery of the area's vegetation and animal life.  The Center includes a theater, a gift shop and outdoor trails. A small admission fee is charged.  The Center was formerly operated by the U.S. Forest Service, and due to its location near Seaquest State Park, it is also known as Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Seaquest State Park.

Our first brief stop came ~5miles along when we pulled into the Mt. St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake.  Didn’t stay long because of the distances we needed to make and places we wanted to stop so, on we went.  About 10miles along the 504, you reach the small town of Toutle, which was decimated by the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens.  Was just a pass through for us.  The ride out to Johnston Ridge is very scenic and amazing.  The entire valley back in 1980 was trashed leaving a new valley floor the level of which was up 50-200feet due to the volume of debris and earth moved by the eruption.  The Weyerhaeuser Company owns much of the replanted timber in the area… they’ve literally replanted millions of trees throughout the area.

Arrived at Johnston Ridge Observatory just before noon and found ample parking.  Was a bit chilly due primarily to the stiff breeze this close to the north face of Mt. St. Helens.  The view to the destroyed north face of the volcano was overwhelming… it was really difficult to comprehend the size of the remaining volcano even though we were 5 miles from the crater.  One feels very small in the presence of Mother Nature. 

Side Note:  The Johnston Ridge Observatory is located 52 miles (84 km) east of Castle Rock, Washington, at the end of Washington State Route 504.  Exhibits focus on the geologic history of the volcano, eyewitness accounts of the explosion, and the science of monitoring volcanic activity.  A movie is available and a bookstore. A half-mile trail provides views of the lava dome, crater, pumice plain, and landslide deposit. The observatory is located by the site of volcanologist David A. Johnston's camp on the morning of May 18, 1980, and opened in 1997.  Johnston was the duty scientist that day and died.  The Observatory is run by the U.S. Forest Service.

On this particular day, there weren’t too many visitors.  There were a couple of busloads of school kids on a field trip and they were being hosted by a couple of park Rangers.  Rosie and I went inside and whiled away the time before the theatre movie by visiting and reading about the events and reasons behind the 1980 eruption.  The movie on the day ran for about 20mins and when it finished, the widescreen lifts and the curtains part to show you a spectacular view of Mt. St. Helens gaping north face.  We exited the building and hiked up a nearby trail for better views to the volcano.  There are a handful of other trails much longer than we hiked but, there just wasn’t enough time in our day for an extended nature hike. 

We took quite a few photos of the volcano and its crater.  While we were on our short hike, noticed a man that appeared to work for the Observatory and struck up a conversation with him, Russ.  Turns out he did work as a Docent for the Observatory and was full of interesting facts about the volcano including the fact that a glacier was reforming within the crater, we could see it, and that nearby Spirit Lake was 200’ higher than before the eruption!  Amazing.

Side Note:  Mount St. Helens (known as Lawetlat'la to the indigenous Cowlitz people, and Loowit to the Klickitat) is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.  It is 96 miles (154 km) south of Seattle, Washington, and 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Portland, Oregon.  Mount St. Helens takes its English name from the British diplomat Lord St Helens, a friend of explorer George Vancouver who made a survey of the area in the late 18th century.   The volcano is located in the Cascade Range and is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire that includes over 160 active volcanoes.  This volcano is well known for its ash explosions and pyroclastic flows. Mount St. Helens is most notorious for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. PDT, the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States.  Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale caused an eruption that reduced the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 ft (2,950 m) to 8,365 ft (2,550 m), replacing it with a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater.   The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km3) in volume.  The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied.  As with most other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, Mount St. Helens is a large eruptive cone consisting of lava rock interlayered with ash, pumice, and other deposits.  The mountain includes layers of basalt and andesite through which several domes of dacite lava have erupted.  The largest of the dacite domes formed the previous summit, and off its northern flank sat the smaller Goat Rocks dome.  Both were destroyed in the 1980 eruption.

Left the Observatory and backtracked our way on the Rt. 504 approximately 7miles to the Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitor Center.  We were quite peckish and decided to have lunch there – we also bought some minor souvenirs while we were there and contemplated buying a helicopter tour of the volcano.  Rosie wasn’t up for it on this day so, we passed on the opportunity.  While we were having lunch we got to see the Bell Ranger helicopter takeoff with passengers and return… maybe next time!

Left the Visitor Center… destination unknown.  We knew we wanted to stay at a hotel someplace south of Seattle on this Friday to make the Saturday commute into the city a breeze so, we plugged Seattle in to the GPS and headed west on the 504.  Thirteen (13) miles later we turned right on State Road 505 north and continued on.  A little over 10miles later we jumped back on to the I-5 North at exit 63 and continued driving towards Seattle.  By this time, mid-afternoon, the clouds had closed in and it had started to rain.  As we drove on, Rosie broke out her iPhone and ‘yelped’ hotels based on the towns and cities we were approaching.  As we approached DuPont and the Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), she found a Hampton Inns Suites in DuPont and gave them a call.  They had room and she reserved a room for $109.  We arrived sometime after 1600.  The only slight downside to this choice of locations was that we were still 50miles south of Seattle.

This Hampton Inn was very new and modern and most likely supported defense service members and contractors doing work for or with JBLM.  Right across from the hotel, there was a Starbucks and a Japanese restaurant, Happy Teriyaki.  We knew where we’d be having dinner on this night. J  Checked in, got settled and made the quick stroll in light rain over to the Japanese restaurant and enjoyed a good supper.  After dinner we made an early evening of it in order to box up some items we’d accumulated along the way for mailing and prep for our day in Seattle.