Living in Portland, it's hard to miss Mt. St. Helens. Every time we drive to the Post Office, we see it. Any time we shop at Target or Ikea, we see it. It's like Mt. Hood - it's "out" in nice weather, it looks pretty right before sunset, and it has snow on it well into the summer. Except we'd never visited - so we decided to change that. It's about a two hour drive from Portland, since (unlike Mt. Hood) it's tucked away into National Forest land without any major roads nearby.
We decided to do two hikes once we got there - the Hummocks Trail and the Boundary Trail. On the drive in, we got a few peeks at the volcano but arrived at the trailhead for the Hummocks loop in the midst of a pretty forest. We were expecting everything to still be barren from the eruption but it's actually really green in some areas!
We walked through the forest, spotted lots of pretty wildflowers, and then the mountain was suddenly in front of us when we came around a bend! It looks so peaceful, it's hard to imagine the whole top of it blowing off instantly. The area we hiked in was full of "hummocks" - rocky hills created by debris from the landslide. It was a really unique hike, weaving in and out of the trees and the open desert-y landscape.
After our "warm up" hike, we headed farther up the slopes to the visitors center at Johnston Ridge. We'd only passed a few hikers, but there were all kinds of people at the visitors center! Tour buses and lots of people speaking other languages - I had no idea it was such a popular destination, nationally and internationally! We had a snack and set out on our second hike. It followed a high ridge that faces Mt. St. Helens - with perfect views the whole way.
Most of the hike curved around hills and the top of the ridge, but near our turnaround point, it clung to the edge of a steep rocky slope. It warned us not to go any further if we had a fear of heights and it turns out that we don't - so that's good to know! We ended at a curve in the trail with a perfect view - we looked at Mt. St. Helens from directly opposite the crater, could see the peak of Mt. Adams, Spirit Lake, and the whole area in front of us was what was most affected by the eruption. It was really incredible to see everything in person - we'd always heard about the eruption, but never knew how devastating it was to the area nearby. Everywhere we looked from up on the ridge, we could see flattened tree trunks fanning outward from where they were knocked over from the volcanic blast. I guess I always thought nature worked faster - it's been over 30 years and those trees haven't rotted away yet!
It was a perfect hike and a perfect time of day, especially on our return hike. The trail continued on all the way to Mt. Adams, but it was time for us to head home!
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