Sweet Baby On The Road

Mt St Helens IS behind the clouds

Toutle River Valley from Coldwater Center

While our stay here at Silver Cove RV Park at Silver Lake has not been rainy....we found it today when we drove up to Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It is only about 35 miles east from our RV Park (and about 55 miles total from I-5).  But as we arrived up at the parking lot a rain storm dumped on us. We had been in the low clouds since about 1000' elevation, and up at the Observatory at 4,800' all we could see outside were fluffy clouds, and well, the rain.  We spent about a hour there, watching the movies and looking at the exhibits, and then had to leave.  The rain had stopped and the clouds had begun to lift off the crater and lava dome, but not enough for us to see it clearly.  Oh well, there wasn't rain or as many clouds on the drive back down towards Toutle.  When we got down as far as the Coldwater Center we were able to get a good view of the Toutle River Valley and see how Mother Nature has been at work these 36 years since the volcano blew.  The river really isn't as wide as it looks here...most of that is the rocks and other leavings of that flooding and mud flow from the 1980 blast...