Mt St Helen's

May 18th,1980 Mt St Helen's erupted spreading ash and causing may catastrophes.  Many people lost their lives with this eruption.  In June of 1982 I was able to visit Mt St Helen's, which was still active.  The kid's and I went to Washington to visit my brother and he took us to see the mountain.  Here are some pictures of this day 31 years ago.

 Monday we journeyed to Mt St Helen's about the same time as the above pictures were taken, 31 years ago.  I was in awe at how much of the area has recovered in the years since I first visited this area.  We went to hike to Clearwater Peak.  This is a 12.2 mile hike that gives you the best view's of Mt St Helen.  You can still see some of the devastation that occurred.  The hike was rated as difficult but really only the last mile or so is difficult, mainly because of the trail climbs at this point.  There is a total of a 2000 ft elevation  gain.  The trail starts at the Johnston Ridge Visitor center.  The first part is paved then turns to dirt.  Actually the trail is very well groomed and wide making hiking it easy.  At least most of it is wide, there a a few places that give you pause.  They are maybe one foot wide and with big drop off's that you have to be careful with.

  I was a little shaky going across this area not only is the trail narrow and straight down but is also slopped a little.  Once around this area everything opens up and it is spectacular.  Words are hard for me to find to tell this story so I am going to let the pictures do it for me.  It was a little emotional journey for me to see it now and compare it to what I saw 31 years ago.

Spirit Lake

Mt St Helen Lake, still with log jams

The mountain is quite now but could become active again anytime.  You can see two bulges in the middle, one grew from 2004 to 2008 but has now stopped growing.  I would hate to see this area destroyed again but Mother Nature has it's own way of doing things.

To use someone's else's words, pictures do not do it justice all you can do is just stand in the middle of it and take it it's beauty!!!!!