Day 19: To Mount St. Helens devastation zone

September 3, 2011

Map of my day trip to the Mount Saint Helens devastation zone. Definitely turn on Terrain view.

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I hoped to get on the road early because I'm leaving the campsite set up. But I didn't get away until 8:18. Today I ride the "unloaded" bike (still 60 pounds) up to Windy Ridge in the Mount St. Helens devastation zone. With huge climbs and no services, I'm carrying a large supply of food and 5 bottles of water.

Instead of going out and back on Forest Roads 25 and 99, I'm making a loop by going up little-used Forest Road 26. All the roads are paved, but the loop adds 500 feet of climbing. Near the beginning were some good views of Mount Rainer, but most of the time the road was under the forest canopy in dense cold morning shade.

Morning view of Mount Rainier from Forest Road 26.

I was pleased that Forest Road 26 had no traffic. Maybe one car every 15 minutes. The road has one lane of pavement, with potholes caused by falling rocks, sinkholes caused by slipping embankments, and short gravel sections in washouts. It climbs up the canyon of Quartz creek but stays hundreds of feet above the creek. The area is all tree farms with open views in areas that were recently harvested.

At the Ryan Lake turnoff was a sign saying that the road is washed out ahead. I had already climbed 2000 feet at that point. Today's excursion will have to be aborted if I can't get through the washout.

I had already climbed 2000 feet when I got to this sign.

A couple miles ahead was my first view of the devastation zone with a clear dividing line between replanted land and Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument which was left to regenerate naturally.

First view of the devastation zone above Quartz creek.

The washout was just past the summit of Forest Road 26. The gap is about 10 feet, with 7 foot deep vertical walls. Definitely not passable in a car, but I carried my bike across the rocky pouroff on the right side. Whew!

The change in environment was sudden and dramatic. I had climbed thousands of feet under a dense forest canopy with few views of the surrounding mountains. Suddenly the forest was gone and I had 360-degree views of the surrounding mountains. The temperature rose instantly from 50F to 70F.

First good view of trees all knocked down in the same direction.

What amazed me most was that the surrounding forest was destroyed and I haven't even seen Mount St. Helens yet! The blast traveled 10 miles in this direction.

After a long descent Forest Road 26 connects to Forest Road 99 which is a designated scenic route with interpretive signs, parking areas, trailheads, etc. Suddenly there was traffic, reminding me that it's Saturday of the holiday weekend.

The first view of Mount St. Helens is at the visitor center which has very few exhibits and is just a shed with no electricity or piped water. No food, but they sell tiny bottles of water.

Miles into the devastation zone I finally see Mount St. Helens.

I continued the climb to Windy Ridge, enjoying the scenes of destruction and renewal all around. And appreciating the warm sunshine and wide open views of surrounding mountains.

I stopped for a while to look at Spirit Lake. The lake is now 200 feet higher than before the eruption. Much of the surface is covered with floating logs. Far too many logs to wash down to the Pacific ocean, so the logs will stay here until they decompose.

Before the eruption there were campgrounds and a lodge on the shore of Spirit Lake. The area was evacuated when the volcano started erupting. But lodge owner Harry Truman refused to leave. On May 18, 1980 Harry and his 40 cats were killed by the blast, then buried under 200 feet of debris.

The lateral blast flattened 230 square miles (589 sq. km) of forest. The largest landslide in recorded history buried 24 square miles (61 sq. km) of forest. Melted glaciers created giant mudflows that took out bridges as far away as I-5. Debris flowing into the Columbia river reduced the channel depth from 40 feet to 14 feet, stranding 31 ocean-going vessels upstream.

A 3 mile (5 km) wide plume of ash and magma spewed into the stratosphere for 9 hours. Downwind cities such as Yakima got several inches of ash. It was a huge mess. In the end, 57 people were killed, 250 homes, 47 bridges and 200 miles of roads and railways were destroyed.

Before this, only 1 person had been killed by a volcano in the 200 year history of the United States. The unexpected ferocity of the eruption prompted the neglected science of volcanology to advance significantly in subsequent decades. Scientists now know that Mount St. Helens is the most active and most violent volcano in the Cascade range, erupting every 100-500 years for many thousands of years. It's still simmering. Since 1980 two 1000+ foot tall cinder cones have formed inside the Caldera, indicating that magma is close to the surface.

USGS photo of Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake before the 1980 eruption.

USGS photo of Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake in May 1982.

Satellite view of the devastation zone 35 years after the eruption.

The road continues for several miles along the ridge, topping out at 4400 feet elevation before descending to 4100 feet at the Windy Ridge parking lot. I arrived at 1:45 and was awestruck by the view from the parking lot for several minutes before noticing the trail going up the hill to a higher vantage point.

Panorama of the devastation zone from the Windy Ridge parking lot. Everything was densely forested before the blast.

Windy Ridge is northeast of Mount St. Helens with a good view of the north face of the mountain. It was the north side of the mountain that exploded in 1980. Now the summit is 1300 feet (400 m) lower and the north portion of the caldera is missing.

Everything around Mount St. Helens was densely forested before 1980. The landslide area immediately north of the mountain is still barren because the debris has too little nitrogen. Nitrogen-fixing plants may need to grow for centuries before trees can grow.

The blast area has recovered in the last 31 years, but the small new trees don't quite resemble a forest yet. Come visit the devastation zone soon. With each passing year the blast is less apparent.

Mount St. Helens from Windy Ridge. A huge steam vent is visible on the right.

From the viewpoint at the top of the hill I had a better view of Spirit Lake and a partial view of Mount Rainier. The landslide caused water to splash 800 feet (240 m) high at the north end of Spirit lake, scouring soil from the steep slope. The bare rock areas are still visible.

Spirit Lake from Windy Ridge. Mount Rainier visible in the distance.

Devastation zone panorama from Windy Ridge. From here it's easy to see that the north face of the mountain fell into the valley below.

I was looking into the sun at Mount St. Helens, but finally had the sun behind me when leaving Windy Ridge at 3 PM. The summit of Forest Road 99 offers an unobstructed view of Mount Rainier to the northeast.

View of 14,411-foot Mount Rainier from Windy Ridge. Excellent visibility.

I should also have a great view of Mount Adams to the east, but it was obscured by what I first thought were clouds. It seemed odd to be cloudy on the dry east side when it's sunny in the wetter area to the west. Later I realized it was smoke, not clouds.

This would be a similarly good view of 12,276-foot Mount Adams if smoke didn't obscure the view.

With the sun behind me the devastation zone views were much better on the way down than on the way up.

Forest Road 99 has 360-degree mountain views in the Mount St. Helens devastation zone.

I saw hundreds of motorcyclists today. During this tour I've seen far more motorcyclists than cyclists. Perhaps this is really the Sierra Cascades motorcycle route, not the Sierra Cascades bicycle route. ;-)

Every year the views become slightly less open as the new trees grow.

I hiked the short nature trail to Meta Lake. While basking in the 75F sunshine I tried to visualize what it was like when it was densely forested.

The descent from Windy Ridge included a very large climb. I followed Forest Road 99 east until it ends, then Forest Road 25 north to the campground. I was very tired, but mentally stimulated by the unique scenery.

Approaching the edge of the zone of toppled trees.

Here the trees were killed but not blown down.

Forest resumes at the National Volcanic Monument boundary.

The scenery suddenly gets boring once I re-enter the forest. No more panoramic views and much colder, going from constant sun to constant shade.

I returned to the Iron Creek campground at 6:48 PM. It was a long day, but very satisfying, and my campsite was already set up. The campground is full tonight, Saturday night of the Labor Day holiday weekend.

The weather was great today. Sunny all day, high of about 75F (24C). But I was above 4000 feet elevation during the warmest part of the day. It was surely warmer down at the campground, helping to make the evening pleasantly warm.

Today was the most memorable day of the tour, greatly exceeding my expectations. It's very hard work to get to the devastation zone by bicycle, but it's worth it!

Distance: 54.3 mi. (87 km)
Climbing: 5811 ft. (1761 m)
Average Speed: 8.5 mph (13.6 km/h)
Hiking: 1.5 mi. (2.4 km)

Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 912 miles (1,468 km)

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