6/13/07
The new heartshaped ice cube trays from Ikea are working out well. It is such a delight to have ice in one’s bubbly water on a 103 degree day. Now, with these new trays, there is no need to worry about running out of ice!!

Today I toured Mt. St. Helens. State Route 504 is a 50 mile new road leading up to an observatory that looks out at Mt. St. Helens from five miles away.
Yours Truly in front of Mt. St. Helens

Up close and personal— the crater left by the blast, a massive flow zone, and the new dome being rebuilt. There is a break in the clouds and new dome can be seen inside the crater of Mt. St. Helens. The slightly blue hazy whiff of sulfuric acid being emitted from the new dome is just visible through the break in the clouds. The other gases that are being emitted are invisible

SR-504 has four information centers on it, and is interspersed by wonderful views of the mountain and wildflowers in great profusion.
There are two or more kinds of every color flower.

Each information center tells the story of the May 18th. 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. You see movies of some of the survivors, simulations and models of the mountain before and after the “blast” as they call it. You see the destruction, the makeup of those materials that built and continue to build the mountain. By the time you have visited the fourth one, and listened to the wonderful geologist explain once again what happened, you actually have a grasp of the magnitude and awesomeness of those events. All in all, It really brings home the experience in a way the watching it on the news many states away, will never penetrate.

Mt. St. Helens is actually an active volcano. It erupted 27 years ago spewing mud, ash and lava for miles and clogging the Toutle river, displacing Spirit Lake, burying Spirit Lodge and its owner under 300 ft. of debris, scouring trees for miles in it’s path. Today it continues to rebuild it’s dome by emitting its sticky lava at a fantastic rate. Now higher than the Empire State building, if it does not blow again, the dome will regain the original height of the old Mt. St. Helens in 170 years.


The Heat Wave Breaks

In the campground that night, there was thunder and lightning- exciting, night lit up repeatedly.It was the first rain of the trip, and in fact, of the summer! I have one or two small leaks around the edges in the campervan.

After that rain, the heat wave broke on Sunday and it was cool and clouds and sun all day. just lovely.

Driving on SR 504 out to the Johnston Observatory, (named after a 29 year old geologist, who died 27 years ago in the eruption of Mt. St. Helens on May 18th. 1980) was awesome. And I don’t use that word lightly. Awesome is the best word for this volcano and seeing the devastation up close. The four visitors centers with interpretive exhibits, movies, wonderful models, a ranger talk with pictures, all served to bring the events of this active volcano to life. Even though it was on the news, you don’t get the hugeness of it till you go. The only active volcano in the contiguous US, the lava is sticky, 60% silica(called Dacite) instead of the 50% silica content of the Besalt emitting volcano in Hawaii. For this reason, it doesn’t flow, but builds up a dome in the crater of the earlier blast.

Here is a bit of Volcano background.
The core of the earth is made of hot magma. In certain parts of the world, this core is closer to the surface and comes up through the surface with pressure of the heat of the molten core. That is what we call a volcano. Our Mt. St. Helens volcano developed a bulge months before it blew. Earthquakes, deep below the surface of the earth are movement of Tecktonic plates, they eventually caused, in this case, an avalanche that dropped off the whole side of the mountain. Once that happened, the pressure of the heated water and gases blew hot ash and lava 9 hours after the avalanche.The explosion was equivalent to many atom bombs being detonated. The ash circled the globe, settling as far as 300 miles from the blast. Awesome is definitely a good word. The Toutle river runs brown, and there is a wide valley of ash and debris going down for miles from the volcano, still after 27 years.

Another high point was at Johnston Observatory. A model of the mountain with a narrated story of the eruption. The narration was illustrated by cool pinpoints of light (fiber optics). They lit up in different places on the model at different times during the narration. The lights showed the path of flows or the rebuilding of the cone within the old crater, or the area of devastation. The green line of lights is the road we came up on, and the sign is the Observatory only 5 miles from Mt. St. Helens.

And finally, of note were the tree farms of the lumber company, Weyerhaeuser, that owns most of the land around here. The noble fir made strange geometric shapes or crosses when viewed at a distance.