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| Thursday, July 27 |
Mt. St. Helens
This morning after breaking down camp, we continued north to the east side of Mt. St. Helens. I wasn't aware of this, but it is currently in the state of eruption. You can actually see steam rising from the top every few minutes.
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| Evidence of the 1980 eruption is plainly apparent everywhere. Although ground level vegetation has regrown, toppled trees numbering in the millions are strewn about for miles. It's very hard to imagine a force that powerful, so when you actually see the devastating result, it's mind boggling. Here's a new picture where you can see the edge of the blast radius. If you zoom in you can see all the trees laying on the ground. Hard to believe it was over 25 years ago: |
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Mt. Ranier
We continued northbound and turned east at Route 12 to Mt. Ranier National Park. You have to have pretty good timing when you go there, because Mt. Ranier is so big at 14,411 feet that it makes it's own weather. For a large part of the day, when we circled it's south side, it's peak was obsured by clouds. As you can see from the picture, the left side is partially hidden. |
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| But when we went all the way back around to the east side, we were able to get great views. We were able to get up to 6400 feet at Sunrise Visitor Center to get the best view. This is the closest you can get by car. |
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By Thursday night, we had made it to Tacoma, WA, staying at a friend's house. Helen has been great! Not only gave us a place to sleep in a warm, comfortable bed for a change, but also did our laundry! As you can see in this new picture, a real bed to sleep in was much appreciated for a change: |
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