Mount Saint Helens (26 Jul 2009)

This is the last Sunday that I will be in Oregon and US, I was so sad that we need to seperate again, but we still on plan to go to Mount Saint Helens as I just didn't want to let my weekend blank during my stay in US.

Mount Saint Helens is a volcano mountain located in southwest Washington, it is about 2.5 hours of driving from Hillsboro, it was grant eruption on 18 May 1980 due to a magnitude 5.1 earthquake at 1 mile beneath of it. After eruption, Mount Saint Helens a large part of the mountain due to landslide, this is a dramastic change on Mount Saint Helens before and after 18 May 1980.

There are two ways to get to Mount Saint Helens, one is from i-503 highway at south of mountainand another one is from i-504 highway at north of mountain, and we travelled through north for this day because Johnston Ridge Observatory is the main attaction of Mount Saint Helens. Thereafter, SL promised to bring me there again through south :)

At the early morning of 26-Jul, I woke up early to prepare our packed dinner, it was fried rice as usual and we will have tuna sandwich for our lunch, I think this is the best option for self prepare dining :D

On the i-504 highway to Mount Saint Helens, there are four visitors center equiped, but we were too early to first two. Then, we stopped by at Forest Learning Center, it was admission free and we could see a lot of Mount Saint Helens information in this visitor center, SL and I found amazed with this visitor center because they really provided a lot of history on 18-May of 1980. After we watched the short movie on the grant eruption, we just found natural will really revenge and it will be really painful to human.

The eruption is really unimaginable, there I saw the volcano erupted from the side of Mount Saint Helens and whole land were slided, they were totally missing just in a moment, it was just like the end of world, I suddenly felt that human is so helpless that we can never stop this kind of natural disaster, we also will be too slow to escape from it and we can do nothing at all.

An elk model.






SL was looking for elk :)




After Forest Learning Center, we proceed to Johnston Ridge Observatory, it is opening from 10am to 6pm daily with USD8 per adult, the admission fee included visit to the visitor center and hiking at Mount Saint Helens area.

At Johnston Ridge Observatory, we can see the whole face of Mount Saint Helens, this mountain is totally lost a part of its land, where I just felt breathtaking on what I had watched from the eruption movie, then I was thinking if our human relationship also will be as fragile as this mountain, can be collapsed easily. Well, I don't hope this will happen, but I worry about it.

Later, we decided to do some hiking at Mount Saint Helens area, and we saw a path, which we were not really sure where it leads us to, but we just took it. Actually, I like hiking, but I was sad this day because my new shoe got dirty on this day, this is all because there were all sand on our hiking path. Although I was sad, I still kept hiking because I hoped that we could get to the lake near to mountain, but I could never be happy with my shoes. Finally, SL and I in cold war along the road, I just couldn't accept that my NEW shoe all covered by sand, it was so ugly :(

Anyways, we still were not abled to get to the lake as we were totally lost of idea on the trail, but we still abled to recover from my bad mood because SL promised to clean my shoes for me, with cleaning my Crocs shoes togehter :P

Well, I don't consider my Mount Saint Helens as a pleasent trip, but I still think it is a good place to visit and hiking. Also, I learnt that I really need to control my temper sometimes, else this might bring a great hurt on our relationship. True, sometimes I am really sturborn and I always like to do things on my way, this actually is not good for relationship, I think I still need to learn more on emotion control and more tolerant with other.











At evening, SL and I just backed to normal and we took a walk at Silver Lake, its admission is included as we paid at Johnston Ridge Observatory, we also found a trail there but we didn't go for it because of too late and I didn't want to hurt my NEW shoes again :)

Then, we took our dinner at picnic deck of Silver River before we backed to Oregon.







Mount Saint Helens website: http://www.mountsthelens.com

An extra story on sunburnt, I did apply sunblock this day, but I didn't have it cover at upper arm at my sleeve corner, therefore I got a small portion of my skin sunburnt on the day, it was really a lesson taking, that US's sun is really harmful and sunblock can really help to minimise that hurt. After backed to home, my skin just turned red at the part totally without sunblock, and that portion totally is looked like burnt after a week, you really can find obvious different.

After this, I would never forget sunblock application and I even need to have it at edge of covered area or even under cloth.

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