Mount St. Helens trip 8/17/03 to 8/18/03.
Adam, Doreen & Patrick.

View from the Cold Water Creek visitor center.

My buddy Patrick.

Nice bikes!

The land below plugged the valley and formed a new lake after the eruption.

Here's the rest of the lake.

The best dam hotel in Mossyrock!

Motorcycles in the early morning sun.

The Windy Ridge parking lot and the stairs up to the elevated view point.

Adam and Doreen. Thanks Patrick!

A park ranger telling us all about the eruption.

Spirit Lake as it exists today. Lot's of lumber! The trees were blown down by the
blast, then the lake sloshed 800' up the ridge washing all these trees into the lake!!

Spirit Lake.

Harry Truman's lodge is about 200' below one of those little islands in the lake.
Spirit Lake's water sloshed 800' up the surrounding ridges. The landslide blocked
and trapped the lake water at it's new elevation. Just beyond the lake you can see
the mass of land that slid into and partially filled a valley. During the slide the
debris and water reached within 80' of the ridge tops!

The outflow of the massive landslide off the mountain filled this valley. 1 cubic
mile of debris.

The mountain as seen from the elevated view point.

Panorama created by Patrick.

Close up.

Another close up of the east side.

Mount Hood in the left of the frame.

Mount Adams.

Mount Adams close up.

The route down to the Coldwater Creek facility. We rode back to Mossyrock for the night.

From Mossyrock we rode to Windy Ridge, and then back home via Rainier National Park. 

The Windy Ridge side of St. Helens was the most interesting view of the blast zone. Take FR-99 from FR-25. You ride on a wonderfully
paved road through  a beautiful old growth forest. At one point you clear a ridge and are suddenly in the blast zone. Very impressive! You
also get an extremely close up view of the crater and lava dome from this side of the park.

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