Mount Saint Helens

This past Sunday was planned to be a relatively dull day of driving between Portland (where we'd just visited a college friend) and Seattle (where we stayed for four nights). We left Portland a bit early, and so looked for things to do on the drive; we saw that Mt. Saint Helens was nearby, so we decided to spend the day there. The volcano erupted in May of 1980, and the surrounding area was turned into a National Volcanic Monument in 1982.

The mountain itself was shrouded in clouds for most of the day, but was very imposing nonetheless:



Even miles away from the volcano there were no large trees; only small trees and stumps of larger ones:



In some areas the blown-down trees were still visible:


Note the hikers for scale.
There were also wildflowers covering much of the area, which made the scenery quite beautiful.



You can see all my pictures in my Mt. Saint Helens photo set on Flickr (I've posted 18 total), and can find more information on the monument at the USDA Forest Service Page and USGS Page, which includes an interactive map with points of interest.

I'll leave you with one final picture showing the power of the volcano: