Mount Saint Helens

Greetings! It's Meili here in the Pacific Northwest.

Did you know the Cascade Mountain range, which runs from Northern California to British Columbia in Canada (that's a whole different country!) has active volcanoes? Well, it does. Quite a few actually. Most haven't erupted in hundreds of years, but one in particular erupted fairly recently.  I'm talking about Mt Saint Helens. It erupted in May of 1980. My human assures me that wasn't very long ago, but it sure was a lot of cat generations ago. My grandparents weren't even alive then!

The mountain stood at 9,677 feet above sea level before the eruption. Now it is only 8,365 feet above sea level. The eruption blew 3.7 billion cubic yards of rock and volcanic material 15 miles into the sky, leaving a huge caldera in the side of the mountain. This would bury 66,000 football fields 10 feet deep. I don't know much about football fields, but I'm pretty sure that would fill A LOT of litter boxes.

Today it is safe to visit Mt. Saint Helen's, so my human and I did just that. We drove to the Mount Saint Helen's National Volcanic Monument Johnston Ridge Observatory. Normally there is an educational center there, but COVID-19 shut that down. There is still a viewing platform directly across from the caldera. From the platform you can still see the damage that was done to the side of the mountain and normally you can get a great view of the caldera. While we were at the observatory, a cloud sat right in the caldera, blocking our view. We saw the peak of the mountain and the side of the mountain, but not the caldera.  It was still pretty cool though.

The cloud sitting in the caldera.

There were still some pretty flowers at Mt Saint Helens.

On our way out of the area, my human noticed the cloud was gone. It had risen above the mountain, so she pulled into a viewing area (safety 1st) then took some pictures with the caldera in full view.

Mt. Saint Helens with the caldera. 

Something cool happened on the way up to the Observatory.  A caravan of Chevy Corvettes passed us. There were about 30 of them (my human said they were probably part of a driving club and NOT a wild herd like I thought). Not long after, we came across another driving club, this one was of Teslas. The contrast was amazing. The Vets were loud (I mean LOUD) while you could barely hear the Teslas. (I liked the Teslas.) When we got to the parking lot at the Observatory, the two clubs (I still think they were wild herds) were there. The vets lined up in a neat row. Some of the Teslas too, so my human took pictures.

The Corvettes. 

The Teslas.

My human and I enjoyed Mt. Saint Helens.