A Few Scenes from the South Side of Mount St. Helens – With a Challenge!

Plans, as they say, oft gang aft agley. I had plans to visit the south side of Mount St. Helens yesterday with Suzanne and Funny Diva. Alas, Suzanne had a last minute issue and couldn’t go. So Funny Diva and I ended up going it alone.

It was a splendid day. The sun was shining, it was summer-warm with lovely fall colors, and we got to see lots I’ve never seen before. That’s mostly because I missed a turn without realizing, and we ended up halfway to Windy Ridge before I was all, “This isn’t right.” So we go to the Lahar Viewpoint much too late to have good light for photographing Mount St. Helens itself. We did, however, have some spectacular light in the valley, which had some delightful features I’ve been wanting to see, so that was a little bit of all right. We’ll see the mountain again soon.

I am beyond exhausted, and my computer is being its usual stubborn self, so I’m afraid I have only a couple of fun outtakes and a challenge to share with you today.

First, here’s one of the fricking awesome sights you’ll see if you forget to turn off Forest Road 90 at the appropriate time. I’m adding it to the South Side stops list. It is that awesome. Ready?

Image shows me pushing against an enormous hunk of dark gray rock. It's taller than I am, and so large it doesn't fit in the picture.
Moi with maclargehuge boulder.

This boulder was carried down off Mount St. Helens by a lahar flowing down Pine Creek on May 18th, 1980. The creek, mind, is way the hell down below.

I’m trying to push it back into the creek, but I know I won’t succeed.

It weighs 74,000 pounds.

Yep. Just sit and absorb that for a moment.

We’ll definitely be talking more about this boulder in the future, and you will absolutely love the images from the creek itself. The light down there was just magnificent, and there are so many bits of Mount St. Helens lying around! We had a delightful time and therefore didn’t regret missing our turn. We did miss Suzanne, though!

At the end of the day, we stopped in Cougar for gas, as it is SO CHEAP YOU GUYS. At the gas station, there was a delightful little station cat who got plenty of scritchins, and then we went and played with the cougar statue. Here you see me playing patty-cake with it.

Image shows me playing patty-cake with a rearing bronze statue of a cougar.
This seemed like a thing to do at the time.

It’s a really neat statue, and I’ll be able to tell you more about it once I’ve deciphered the plaque below. Alas, that plaque was carved into a crumbly stone that’s eroded rather badly.

All right, time for your challenge: see how many glacial features you can identify in these mountains overlooking the Swift Canal.

Image shows a strip of blue water flowing between grassy green banks. There is a stand of alders on the opposite bank. Then there is a long, low ridge with a sharp top, covered in conifers. The mountains behind have been carved by glaciers.
Lovely mountains viewed across Swift Canal.

You have no idea how excited I got when I looked across the Lewis River Valley and went, “ZOMG – I can see a buncha glacial features from here!” Funny Diva was kind enough to let me babble on about it for quite some time. And yes, that is how spectacular the day was – we were having phenomenal weather. Hopefully next week will give us a lovely day so we can get Suzanne down there – she still needs to see all the cool stuff!

I’ll have more for you after some brief recovery time, my darlings.

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A Few Scenes from the South Side of Mount St. Helens – With a Challenge!
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4 thoughts on “A Few Scenes from the South Side of Mount St. Helens – With a Challenge!

  1. 1

    U-shaped valley? Terminal moraine? Erratic boulder so huge its actually confused with a mountain? Glacial striations buried under all that grass? (Okay maybe not so much for those last two?)

    The soil itself with all the richness and nutrients in it indicated perhaps by vegetation and soil chemistry and microscopic study would perhaps be a not overly visible sign of glaciation there.

    I know that’s my continent’s (Oz’s) big problem soils~wise – no recent ice ages to grind up rock and make some thick fertile loam layers!

  2. 3

    That cirque looked MUCH closer in person. Just sayin’.

    And a couple hours later, with the sun much lower? Made the horny outcrops at the top really pop!

    It was quite the day of stuff to take pictures of! And I din’d even have the camera!

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