First Stop in Washington - Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument

Greetings! 

After 4 glorious weeks in Oregon, we made it to Washington State.  We left Astoria, Oregon on Tuesday morning and headed to Mount St. Helen's - about a 1.5 hour drive.  

We were so inspired by and impressed with this area and its history and all of the stories we heard from various volunteers and locals.  On May 18, 1980 at 8:32 AM, Mount St. Helens erupted creating significant damage - a full account of the devastation can be found here.   In the aftermath in 1982, the US government created the Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument - dedicating 110,000 acres of Mount St. Helens and its surroundings - inside the monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.  The impact of the volcano, however, went far beyond these 110,000 acres;  68,000 acres of the surrounding forests are owned by a Timber company - Weyerhaeuser.  About 3 months after the eruption, they started removing the thousands of dead logs for Timber and painstakingly replanted 18 million trees.  45 years later, the forests are abundant both inside and outside the monument zone.  As you can imagine, there were 2 schools of thought of how to regroup after the eruption and both coexist in this special place.  The National Monument has two fantastic visitor centers and Weyerhaeuser (called the Forest Learning Center) has one as well - all three were excellent.  The most compelling stories we heard were from one of the volunteers at the Forest Learning Center - Carl - who was a Weyerhaeuser logging foreman right after the eruption and shared insight of how the company working day and night to remove the destroyed trees and then all the tireless efforts to replant them - the whole process took 7 years.

Here are 2 photos that Paul took at one of the Visitor Centers - Before and After the eruption:

And I captured the above quote as 45 years later, we definitely witnessed the abundant life that has thrived since the eruption.  There is one road that goes into the monument - everything had to rebuilt - including several bridges.

We stayed 3 nights at the Harry Gardner County Park - one of the closer campgrounds to Mount St. Helens along the South Toutle (pronounced "Tootle") River which was devastated by a huge mud slide after the eruption.  As you can see by the photo, it is looking great today.  We loved our campsite and enjoyed a nice fire one evening.

Every morning we woke up to fog, but it always burned off by 10:30-11am and we experienced glorious sunny weather the entire time we were there.

There are multiple viewpoints along the way and we also walked many trails during our visit.  

Our first full day, we hiked along the Hummocks Trail.  Hummocks are rounded, knoll-like or hillock-shaped features found in groups and formed by natural process - in the case of Mt. St. Helens, they were created by the landslides caused by the eruption - so essentially, they were rock pieces from the top of the volcano.  Volunteers told us that the scientists have the data to know exactly what part of the mountain each hummock came from.  It was an absolutely beautiful trail - great views of the mountain and lots of time spent in meadows and forests that were less than 45 years old!  Among the regrowth, there are still signs from the eruption.

Our second day, we hiked the Sediment Dam Trail.  This trail provides a lovely walk around the structure that the Army Corps of Engineers built to keep sediment from Mt. St. Helens from washing down the Toutle River and inundating communities downstream. 

After the Dam Trail, we headed to Coldwater Lake - a beautiful lake formed after the eruption.  Before the eruption, it was a small creek - but after it became a beautiful lake and recreation area. The first photo is taken from the visitor center.  We then went down and walked along the lake's edge.  

After Mount St. Helens, we headed to Olympia (capital of Washington) and are staying at an all Airstream RV park here and it's a great launching point for multiple wonderful things to enjoy in this area.  We just spent the last 2 days at Mount Rainier so will be posting about that soon.

Thanks for following along - cheers and love, Jen & Paul

Our Last Week in Oregon - Exploring the Northern Coast

Greetings!  We just arrived in Washington state yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed our last week in Oregon on the coast.  Enjoy the recap!

After a lovely visit to Willamette Valley, we headed back to the Coast and stayed in the cute port town of Garibaldi just north of Tillamook.  Our campsite was on the harbor and we stayed there for 3 nights.  We were a short walk away from the pier with the historic Coast guard house at the end.  It was a beautiful walk and several people were crabbing and we had some interesting conversations with a few people - I love eating crab but honestly didn't know too much about catching them.

First - a few photos of our campsite:

And here are a few photos of the pier and crabbing.  I also took a few shots of the railing where you can see all the marks along the wood from the lines to the crabbing pots.

We enjoyed a ride on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, a historic train / non-profit that went from Garibaldi to the next town north - Rockaway Beach.  It's a small town with a big beach and we enjoyed our visit.  The train ride was 30-minutes along the coast and we walked the beach, had lunch, and then went back to Garibaldi.

We drove back to Rockaway Beach the next day as they have a Cedar Preserve that features some of the largest Western Red Cedar trees on the west coast - it was a short walk along a scenic boardwalk.

150 feet tall 49 feet wide

 

We went out to the Meares Lighthouse the next morning and the views were so pretty.  This area also featured an Octopus Tree - when you see the photos, you'll know why it is called that!

That afternoon, we headed to Tillamook Creamery, which is a farmer owned coop similar to Cabot in Vermont  Tillamook won an award for best cheddar cheese in the world (!!) and is also know for it's fantastic ice cream!  It is very popular and therefore was quite a zoo!  They have a great self-guided tour that overlooks the factory floor and it was fun to watch the production - Paul took a great video which you can check out here.  They are experts at moving people along and our line for the ice cream went very quickly.  We decided to share a sampler where you can 3 different flavors - we chose Oregon Strawberry, Marionberry Pie, and Mint Chocolate Chip - all delicious!

Then it was time to head to our next destination - Astoria, Oregon.  But as we were leaving Garibaldi, we gave the Airstream a long overdue bath!

We loved Astoria - such an interesting place and historically significant in two major ways.  First, there is the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park as this is where Lewis & Clark ended up and the visitor centers were great detailing their journey from 1804 to 1806 when Thomas Jefferson was president and as you'll see by the photo below, their quest was the Pacific Ocean.  It was very interesting how smoothly the trip went - all things considered - and what an amazing job they did capturing all of the details of the journey - which definitely blazed the trail for travel to the west by providing significantly helpful information for future generations.  Pretty impressive.

The second major way that Astoria is historically significant is through its maritime culture.  Astoria is right on the Columbia River (south side) at the mouth of the Pacific Ocean and is a major shipping route.  The Columbia River is so large and flows so swiftly out to the Pacific - it carries much silt and created a very dangerous sand bar just outside the river's mouth and there were thousands of shipwrecks.  They built two very large jetties on either side which helped tremendously, along with ensuring each ship is  accompanied by a Pilot boat / captain coming in and leaving the River.  

There is a great Maritime Museum downtown in Astoria which beautifully detailed of the city's rich maritime history.

Roll on roll off car carrier inbound

The Columbia Lightship 

We then explored the north side of the river at the Pacific - called Cape Disappointment.  We drove across the Astoria-Megler bridge to get there and Cape Disappointment is in Washington state.  Beautiful scenery as well as two lighthouse within 2 miles of each other.  This is rare, but given the challenges of these waterways, they added an additional lighthouse to help ships navigating from the north.

Windswept tree near the lighthouse

The next day we went to the south of the Columbia River's mouth - Fort Stevens, back in Oregon.  This area is also rich in history and was very active protecting the coast during World War II.  We rode our bikes and also got a closer look at the South Jetty - pretty amazing.  There is also a shipwreck that is still on the beach.

Astoria is a cool small city - some refer to it as a "mini San Francisco" - there are some hills and we found the downtown area quaint - we enjoyed the Sunday market and also checked out the Astoria Column which overlooks the city and river.  It's 164 steps and the art outside depicts the Lewis & Clark journey.

We stayed in Astoria 4 nights and thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this interesting small city.  Here are a few photos of our campsite:

We departed yesterday morning and are now in Washington state and exploring Mt. St. Helens, which has been amazing.  Will be posting about that soon.

Thanks for following along - cheers and love, Jen & Paul