Hiking Johnston Ridge at Mount St. Helens
Sep. 9th, 2022 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerPacific Northwest September Travelog #9
Mount St. Helens National Monument - Sun, 4 Sep 2022, 12pm
Sunday morning we drove from our hotel in Vancouver, WA to Mount St. Helens. We've been to the park a few times before, but in different areas. Four weeks ago we visited Windy Ridge, on the east side. Years ago we visited Lava Canyon and its waterfalls on the south side. But until today we'd never visited the main part of the park, the Johnston Ridge Observatory. Oh, we tried once, several years ago. The mountain was all socked in with clouds. Sunday this past weekend was the clearest looking day in the weather forecasts for our three day trip, so we chose it for a visit. Our planning paid off with beautiful, clear weather most of the day.
The photo above is a view of Mount St. Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory. From this spot you see the northwest face of the mountain, the area where it blew open in a violent eruption in 1980.
The observatory was built in 1997 near the camp of volcanologist David Johnston, one of several scientists who perished in the explosion. Some people might sneer at Johnston's death as, "If he's such a smart scientist, why was he standing on a volcano that was about to erupt?" Understand that a) this spot is 4 miles away from the center of the crater and up a mountain. Such was the force of the eruption that the top of this ridge was scoured bare. And b) the field work of brave scientists like Johnston at Mount St. Helens contributed greatly to our understanding of volcanic eruptions. Scientists today are able to predict with much greater accuracy when and how other volcanoes will erupt, helping improve the safety of people who live nearby.
One of many things that's interesting in this scene is the river flowing down from the volcano. At this time of year many streams run dry. This one is fed by melt from a glacier that formed in the crater after the eruption.
Here's a zoomed-in shot of the inside of the crater (above). There are not one but two lava domes inside it. They formed at different times since the 1980 eruption. It's hard to understand scale in this photo, but those domes are 800' high. The whole mountain used to be 1300' taller than the rim of the crater... that's how much rock came rushing down the mountain as part of the eruption.
Also, all the clouds you see inside the crater are steam. Yes, the area is still volcanically active.
Anyway, we weren't here just to visit the observatory. We were here to hike.
From the observatory there's a great hike out along Johnston Ridge to the east, leading to Devil's Point. It's around the nose of that bald ridge you see in the middle ground of the photo above. That's where we're going this afternoon.
Beyond that bald ridge you can see a snow-capped peak peeking up. That's Mt. Adams, elev. 12,281 ft (3,743 m). On the right beyond the ridge you can see part of Spirit Lake. Beyond Spirit Lake is Windy Ridge. That low saddle point in the ridge above the lake is where I began climbing 439 stairs to Windy Ridge last month.
More to come....
Mount St. Helens National Monument - Sun, 4 Sep 2022, 12pm
Sunday morning we drove from our hotel in Vancouver, WA to Mount St. Helens. We've been to the park a few times before, but in different areas. Four weeks ago we visited Windy Ridge, on the east side. Years ago we visited Lava Canyon and its waterfalls on the south side. But until today we'd never visited the main part of the park, the Johnston Ridge Observatory. Oh, we tried once, several years ago. The mountain was all socked in with clouds. Sunday this past weekend was the clearest looking day in the weather forecasts for our three day trip, so we chose it for a visit. Our planning paid off with beautiful, clear weather most of the day.
The photo above is a view of Mount St. Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory. From this spot you see the northwest face of the mountain, the area where it blew open in a violent eruption in 1980.
The observatory was built in 1997 near the camp of volcanologist David Johnston, one of several scientists who perished in the explosion. Some people might sneer at Johnston's death as, "If he's such a smart scientist, why was he standing on a volcano that was about to erupt?" Understand that a) this spot is 4 miles away from the center of the crater and up a mountain. Such was the force of the eruption that the top of this ridge was scoured bare. And b) the field work of brave scientists like Johnston at Mount St. Helens contributed greatly to our understanding of volcanic eruptions. Scientists today are able to predict with much greater accuracy when and how other volcanoes will erupt, helping improve the safety of people who live nearby.
One of many things that's interesting in this scene is the river flowing down from the volcano. At this time of year many streams run dry. This one is fed by melt from a glacier that formed in the crater after the eruption.
Here's a zoomed-in shot of the inside of the crater (above). There are not one but two lava domes inside it. They formed at different times since the 1980 eruption. It's hard to understand scale in this photo, but those domes are 800' high. The whole mountain used to be 1300' taller than the rim of the crater... that's how much rock came rushing down the mountain as part of the eruption.
Also, all the clouds you see inside the crater are steam. Yes, the area is still volcanically active.
Anyway, we weren't here just to visit the observatory. We were here to hike.
From the observatory there's a great hike out along Johnston Ridge to the east, leading to Devil's Point. It's around the nose of that bald ridge you see in the middle ground of the photo above. That's where we're going this afternoon.
Beyond that bald ridge you can see a snow-capped peak peeking up. That's Mt. Adams, elev. 12,281 ft (3,743 m). On the right beyond the ridge you can see part of Spirit Lake. Beyond Spirit Lake is Windy Ridge. That low saddle point in the ridge above the lake is where I began climbing 439 stairs to Windy Ridge last month.
More to come....
