We started our hike from the Norway Pass trailhead and immediately started a climb (we went uphill all day, but it was a nice grade that didn't kill you). If you were the type of hiker that wanted to get from A to B really fast, you would have hated being with us. I had to stop every two seconds and gape at the views. And Jay and I both had to stop and eat wild strawberries whenever we saw them. As we climbed, the views just got more and more incredible. It was crazy to think that had the mountain not erupted, we would have been hiking in a forest! But instead of a forest, we were hiking in ash, stumps, and downed trees. Wildflowers ruled here, not trees.
The strength of the 350 mph ash blast are obvious. The trees were knocked down in a second. If we had been camping here when the eruption occurred, we also would have been flattened. It was humbling to see evidence of this kind of force.
Mt. Adams was the first volcano we got a great view of - with Meta Lake in the foreground. Before we started hiking, Jay asked me if I thought we would see other volcanoes. I suggested that we might only be able to see Mt. St. Helens. I couldn't have been more wrong. This view was only the beginning.
We had lunch at Norway Pass with this lovely view of Mt. St. Helens, the crater, and Spirit Lake. What looks like ice in the lake is actually a giant raft of logs.....the remains of the forest that was blasted into the lake on the day of the eruption.
Here is the crappy view from our campsite (the tent is right behind Jay). We could see Mt.Rainier right from our tent door. Turns out that we could see all Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens all from our campsite. Bliss!
A short walk from our tent at sunset and we got great views of alpenglow on Mt. Adams.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Jay and I both woke up in the tent to the sound of something large walking over the snow fields that surrounded our camp. Stupidly we thought they were mountain goats. We had seen huge tracks in the snow and for some reason we assumed they were a huge mountain goat. How silly of us? The noise outside our tent was not going away, and there were some high-pitched whimpering noises too. We started wondering what bear cub noises sounded like....or if mountain goat kids made noises. We kept sticking our head out of the tent, but could see nothing. Whatever it was, it was behind our tent and we were too warm and lazy to get out and inspect. Finally, we heard a telltale sound - an elk bugling. And we had a good laugh at ourselves for thinking the elk tracks were mountain goat tracks. That would be a massive mountain goat!
The view of the elk herd in the early morning confirmed our thoughts that we had an elk herd next to the tent in the middle of the night.
This was a lovely view to have in the morning.
On the way back, I stopped to marvel at a force so strong it could flip a tree upside down. Wow.
More pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/August2011
(scroll down to the stuff past North Cascades NP pictures)
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