Mt. St. Helens "Monument"al Moments

Did you know that Mt St Helens is a National Monument and not a National Park? I didn't. Being so close to Mt Rainier National Park, I had just never made the distinction and assumed they were both parks. Anyway, we finally made it to Mt St Helens National MONUMENT this past week during our time at Mothyrock. It's hard to believe that it took us 9 years to get there! When we moved around alot, I always had a list of all the places and things in an 8-10 hour radius that I wanted us to do in our three or four year tour. We usually did them all, some of them more than once. Moving here, I was no different and had a list. After our first year, I was dismayed to realize that there were still so many things we didn't get to do. Bob assured me that it was OK since we planned on staying here for more than 3-4 years. After that, I guess I must have slacked off too much as it took us over 5 to get to Mt Rainier and 9 to get here! 

We left our campground early Thursday morning headed to explore both Ape Caves and Lava Canyon. It was quite a twisty and windy road traveling first east, then south and then west to arrive at our destination. Because of our route, we never saw the side where the eruption took place in May of 1980. This view is of the east side and was revealed to us in all it's glory as we rounded one of many curves. We stopped here to stand in awe and, of course, take pictures. 

After lunch, we traveled further to Ape Caves. They are so named, according to the pamphlet, because in 1951 a local youth group extensively explored the cave that had been discovered in 1947. Leaving footprints where no else ever had, these lucky early explorers were able to travel through a pristine lava tube full of amazingly shaped and fragile formations. The youth group dubbed themselves the St Helens Apes, in memory of a 1924 hoax perpetrated by two boy scouts. The scouts had decided to throw large, lightweight pumice rocks into a canyon. Unbeknownst to the, there was a cabin below with two miners insde. Seeing what looked like small ape like figures high up the canyon, making ape noises and hurling big rocks, the miners reported that apes attacked them. From this legend, Ape Cave received it's name.
It was exciting to enter the caves although a bit disconcerting to think the red hot lava once flowed through them during an eruption 1900 years ago.

The walls with their many striations and marks were fascinating to look at.

The "Meatball" threatening to crush our girls!

A fearless "spelunker"

It was a brisk and cool 42 degrees inside so we could see our breath.

Another fearless and intrepid traveler with friend in tow.

Her future is so bright, she has to wear shades!
They climbed upon a ledge and peered at us through this hole.



The entrance and the exit. There was an invisible wall where the coolness and shade of the lower cave met the heat and humidity of the outside.  It was nicer insde!

We drove a bit further back to explore the Two Trails of the Forest. This was an elevated boardwalk showing spots where lave had destroyed trees and left the holes behind. There was a crawling tunnel that some of us tried. For many it was daunting to start at the beginning so some started at the end and went backwards! This is one of our own exiting the exit. Well, it was actually the wrong exit. The tunnel itself took a fork and she was supposed to take the other one, but was able to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze through this one!

The Graduate was fascinated by
the walls.

After this brief explore, we traveled a further distance up the road to Lava Canyon. Here there were three trails-easy, moderate, and difficult. We chose the middle one with a waterfall and a suspension bridge. The scenery was breathtaking and the evening wonderful.

The shadows of our girls on the canyon wall as they embarked across the first bridge.

I LOVE the colors in this one!

Isn't that the coolest rock?

The suspension bridge. Really cool.



I would have enjoyed the bridge more if it hadn't moved so much. Something about girls jumping up and down and swinging it made me a bit scared and it was very difficult to take pictures too :).

Safe on the other side, they could make it sway all they wanted!

Upon leaving the canyon, we were anxious to get back to camp for dinner. It would end up being over two hours and in the end, we would have made a complete circle around the monument of Mt St Helens. Although the light wasn't quite right, we stopped to capture some photos of the mountain and the flowers. I think the bottom one is my favorite although I like things about them all particularly the stump in the one above and the orientation in the one immediately below. We had a mountain in Alaska called Sleeping Lady and if you look closely at this one, you can almost imagine that this one is a sleeping lady also. (head to the left and her body going down and away to the right).

I am glad we finally made it here. Unfortunately, we went on a day when Bob had not yet joined us so he missed out. It was ironic that on the way home, when we finally had a cell phone signal and he called to say when he would be joining us for camping, he told us of a place he had read and heard about. He had even printed out some information so we could decide if we wanted to go explore it. You know what it was called? Ape Cave. We promised him we would go again.