Two Volcanos in One Day

After leaving Olympic NP, we drove south, from Washington to Oregon.  The final destination was Crater Lake NP and we stopped at Mt. Saint Helens on the way.
 
We left Olympic NP early on Sunday morning.  Here is one last beach picture.  You can see Bill has finally gotten in the vacation mood enough to be barefoot!

Mt. Saint Helens

Before leaving the state we stopped by Mt. Saint Helens.

It was May, 1980 when Mt. Saint Helens erupted (for the most recent time).  With all the mountains we are seeing on this trip we are learning that each one has its own story.  Volcanoes can erupt multiple times and can build up their height this way, or they can have a destructive eruption.  That's what happened with Mt. Saint Helens.  There was an underground build up of pressure from magma and eventually this exploded and more or less one side of the volcano was turned into ash and torrents of mud.

Mt. Saint Helens is a National Monument rather than a National Park and there are various interests working on both sides of that issue.  It is about 50 miles east of the main north-south route in western Oregon.  There is a state visitor's center close to the main highway.  We stopped there and Matthew picked up another Junior Ranger badge.  The peak of Mt. Saint Helens is visible from there, but we wanted a closer look.  There is a national visitor center on a peak directly across from the north side of the mountain, the side that exploded.

Oregon Observations

To get from Washington to Oregon we crossed the Columbia River (which Lewis and Clark traveled down to get to the Pacific) and drove through Portland, Oregon.  This was the first time in this state for all three of us.  It turns out that Salem, the capital of Oregon is on the highway, so we got another state capitol picture.

Maybe as an indication of the type of state Oregon is, this fountain is right across the street from the capitol building.  It was 80 degrees and lots of kids were playing in the water.

This was a very long day of driving.  We arrived at the Crater Lake lodge at midnight!  Beth is not very comfortable on the narrow, curvy mountain roads with no guardrails.  It wasn't clear whether driving on those types of roads at night time was better or worse!  At least we got an impressive view of the night sky.

Crater Lake NP

We spent two nights here, so we had a full day to enjoy the lake.

The story here, a little similar to Mt. Saint Helens, is that the original mountain (Mazama) erupted in an explosive way (rather than the flowing lava way) in a number of places.  Rangers said that ash from this mountain have been found in Canada and about 5 or 6 western states.  But the largest part of the remaining mountain actually sank into the ground, into a huge magma chamber.  This resulted in a collapse of the center of the mountain, leaving this big hole.  Over years, rain and snow have created the lake we see today.  Surprisingly, it is estimated that the collapse took place only 7,000 years ago, fairly recently compared with some of the other places we've visited on this trip.

Here are some views from the rim.  The water is a deep blue.  There was some snow around.

We took a "short" hike down the inside of the crater to the water and then had a boat ride around the inside.  This was a great way to get close and personal with the crater.

The ranger described the "seven wonders of Crater Lake" as we circled the lake.  It was mostly about the various features you can see in the sides of the crater and what geologists know about what happened.  But we were lucky to also see the eight wonder - the Old Man of the Lake.  This is a floating log that apparently still has the roots so it floats vertically.  The part showing is about 2 feet in diameter and it sticks out of the water about 3 feet.  In the past, tour boats would let people get on the top of this log.  It has been around for over 100 years!

There may have been some additional geologic activity during our boat ride because the trail back up to the car was much longer!

Matthew found an elk jaw bone near the hiking trail.  We turned it in at the ranger station.

We left the park Tuesday morning, heading east.  Heading for home!  But there are some stops along the way - Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, Rocky Mountain NP, and more.