Volcano Camping

 "Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice." - Will Durant

Washington State has five active volcanoes, as well as several extinct ones.  Just to catalogue the live one, in case you are not familiar, they are Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Saint Helens.  Extinct volcanoes here include: Goat Rocks, Silver Star Mountain, Indian Heaven Volcanic Field, Trout Creek Hill, West Crater, Simcoe Volcanic Field, and Battle Ground Lake.

This is to say, Washington is explosive, and has been for a Very Long Time, and will be far into the future.

Other than one overnight camp at Mt. Rainier a few years ago and a short trip to North Cascades National Park the year after that, all of our camping has been on the Olympic Peninsula, home to an ancient mountain range which is Not Volcanic.  Until last week's trip.  

The impetus to go to Mt. Saint Helens area came from the fact that the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower, coinciding with the sliver-iest moon phase came up on August 11th, and we wanted to see shooting stars.  East, away from the coast, gives clear skies, and less light pollution.

Wednesday, we drove over to the Adams Fork Campground in the Gifford - Pinchot National Forest, selected because of its proximity to the St. Helens region, the fact that it has eleven first come - first served sites, and that it has potable water.

Gifford-Pinchot is an administrative merger of the former Rainier National Forest and Columbia National Forest.  We picked out a site with a trail down to the river...

That evening, on our way to find an empty site with a decent clearing overhead to view the sky, we met some giant toads who come out at night.  Afterward, we lay on the picnic table to watch the show.  There was not a huge swath of visibility between the trees, but it was very clear and we could see some of the Milky Way.  The adults saw several meteors.  The kids missed them all.  We thought me might find a more open spot- not at the campground -for watching the following night.

Thursday morning Jared was off trail running, and I was reading a book while the kids slept; the breeze picked up, blowing in hot air and wildfire smoke.  Suddenly we could barely make out the ridge across the river from us.  So much for seeing the meteor shower or a whole lot of anything, for that matter....

We decided to drive over toward St. Helens and do a 1.3 mile hike on Windy Ridge, overlooking Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens.  Due to poorly marked maps, it took us a LONG time on the one-and-a-half-lane, often gravel, forest roads to find the trail head.  There was no question when we left the older forest and entered the 1980 blast zone...

It was quite stunning.  Yes, there was a lot of new life, including trees nearly 40 years old, but the old forest was still there, shattered, a breathtaking moonscape.  We were still 25 miles or so from the volcano herself.

Spirit Lake is a giant lake about 15 miles north of St. Helens, a former jewel from an anthropocentric perspective, once a recreation area dotted with summer camps.  In the 1980 blast, the entire north side of the mountain slid off and into the lake, creating the Pumice Plane, and pushing all the water out of the lake and up its containing mountains to collect the forests instantly seared in the blast, and sucking them back down with the giant tidal wave back into its basin.  (The enormous rafts of floating trees still cover a decent percentage of the water 41 years later.)  The lake was suddenly 250 feet higher than before, and its outlet to the Toutle River was completely blocked, forcing the geological and engineering department in 1982 to bore a mile long tunnel under an adjoining mountain to create an emergency drain to another creek.  The Toutle was in danger of catastrophic flooding from occasional spills over the top of its previous drain point, endangering homes and livestock downstream.  The forest we walked through was all young - a few small evergreens, but lots of wildflowers and berry bushes and small, slender deciduous trees.  I saw a few plants there I was not familiar with from hikes elsewhere...

This large flat area is the Pumice Plane, created by the side of the mountain flowing down into the lake:

Then we came round a bend, and suddenly saw the Mountain herself in her cratered glory, near enough to touch, but very hazy in the smoke.  Truly a stunning first glimpse I will never forget.

Sinkhole after sinkhole, both along the trail and on the paved roads where giant trees once stood, now the remains of their roots rotting away and the land falling into their caverns:

"AREA BEYOND THIS SIGN CLOSED ENTRY BY RESEARCH PERMIT ONLY":

St. Helens is the youngest of the Cascade volcanoes, only around 300,000 years old, and the most active, such that Natives have long called her variations on "Fire Mountain".  Prior to the 1980 eruptive period (which is still ongoing), the last eruption had been 1857, just long enough ago for the White folk to be unable to imagine her power.  Her shape has been destroyed and rebuilt many times over her life, and her form in 1980 was only around 2500 years old.  Of course, her shape is quite different now.  You can see a before and after diagram here:

Back at the campsite, the kids were quite busy building volcanoes and lakes full of dead trees in the dust.  And Anne was busy crafting with all the supplies she packed in her suitcase.

Friday, we decided to visit Council Lake, a subalpine destination in the National Forest, near a trail up to Council Bluff, which promised Mount Adams so near you can almost touch it. (Mt. Adams is the second highest peak/volcano in the state.) The smoke was worse, and the roads were almost entirely gravel, but few logging trucks travel there, so the roads are quite smooth, but very dusty.  Jared and I took turns staying with the kids at the lake and doing the hike.

The first time I looked at Mt. Adams, "so close you can almost touch it", I did not see it.  The second time I looked at it, I noticed some odd little clouds above the horizon.  I studied them for a while and realized they were glaciers on the side of the Giant, and with the use of my tinted sunglasses, I could just barely make out the edges of that tall edifice.  I could not see Rainier or St. Helens at all.  I can't wait to do the same hike again on a clear day.  If you squint at my pictures, which I altered with a bit of photoshop magic, you, too, may barely make out Adams' distinguished frame.

My twinsies playing with Chase and Micky duplos in the tent:

Saturday we drove over to Walupt Lake, another subalpine beauty in the National Forest, bordering on the Goat Rocks Wilderness Area (an extinct volcano).  The kids played at the lake all day, and Jared did some too, while also hiking a smaller peak in the Wilderness.  I put on my bathing costume, and determined that I would experience extreme regret if I did not actually swim in the lake.  Note that I am not a strong swimmer and I hate cold water.  As it was one of the hottest days of the year (likely in the low 80s up there, and 100 at home) I found a way to manage it.  I waded in up to my hips, and stood, starting to feel more temperate in the shallow water.  I stayed there for roughly 15 minutes before I got up the nerve to dive in and swim.  I swam forty strokes out.  I was swimming very fast, as the cold water was a shock.  At my turn around point, I was out of breath and, noticing I could not touch the bottom, I had a brief moment of panic.  I slowed down and swam the forty strokes back, getting warmer as I went.  I eventually did several loops of 30 strokes out and back, so that I did not get too deep.  I stayed in for an hour or two, because I knew if I got out, I would not have the nerve to reenter the water.  At the end of the visit, I took a small walk in the Wilderness along the side of the lake.

Before we returned to our campsite, we visited a spot my former archaeology-obsessed self delighted in.  This is a small cave way back in the woods called Layser Cave, rediscovered by a Forest Service employee some decades ago.  This spot was inhabited and used off and on by ancestral Taidnapum families from roughly 5000 BCE until around 1000 BCE, when a particularly messy explosion of Mt. Saint Helens made the area uninhabitable for a while.  Evidence from the cave indicates trade with coastal groups, butchering of game hunted in a nearby valley using the atlatl (the bow and arrow had not come to the Pacific Northwest yet), drying of berries, fish caught in weirs, and small game caught in traps.  While people lived along the coast here for millenia, this is the oldest inland archaeological site by far in Washington and Oregon. I can't believe I had never heard of it before.  What a treasure!

Sunday dawned cooler and clearer, and was sadly the time for our drive home.  Jared's early morning trail run near the campsite rendered clearer views of Mt. Adams, and he sent me out on a short reconnaissance mission for peak viewing before we left.  Nice view of the caldera side.

Lazarus, for the first time, was interested in writing, and took a crayon to some cardboard to figure out how to draw "4", his current age.

We drove down the east side of St. Helens...

...and around the south side to see Ape Cave, a formation created by St. Helens only Basalt explosion.  Sadly, the cave is now on a reservation-only system due to its popularity, but we visited the nearby trail called Two Forests, filled with more amazing sights from that unique eruption around 2000 years ago.

Lava poured down the south side of the mountain, surrounding the old growth forest as it went, setting the trees on fire, and then cooling around the molds they created.

Two of the toppled giants were buried at a 90-degree angle to each other, and create a 40-foot long tunnel which can be crawled through.  We took flashlights, as recommended, and the lava impressions of the 2000 year old bark looked completely fresh, and were hard on the knees...

The ridiculously long drive home from the south side was lubricated by our continuing sound track of Roald Dahl's Boy and Going Solo, along with unlimited snacks.  We were slowed down at one point by a wildfire on a mountainside adjoining the road.  Several tankers and a helicopter were there working to put it out.  It has been so dry this summer after our unprecedented heat wave in late June (we measure 113 in the shade in our yard) and the typical lack of rain during these months.

This trip was eye opening, and Jared remarked that there is a whole life-time of amazing things to see in Washington state.