Tacoma, WA -to- Chehalis, WA -to- Mount Saint Helen, WA -to- Cougar, WA

Dash Point State Park - Federal Way, WA

Great walking trails at Dash Point

Port of Tacoma

Heading back into downtown Tacoma

Cloud pic

Hawk at campground in Chehalis, WA

Walking trail in Chehalis

Chehalis daisies

"Absolutely NO Trespassing For Any Reason Whatsoever" - a welcome sign.  Note the hawk with the squirrel at his feet.

Golf course RV park -  we were going to take lessons, but the weather wasn't conducive.

On the way to Mount St. Helens

Maxie snoozing in the front seat while Mom is in the back office working

Entering Blast Zone

Too foggy to see the Volcano

Model at the Visitors Center

Eagle claw - wow

Mount St. Helens is most notorious for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. PDT, the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways, and 185 miles of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale caused an eruption that reduced the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 ft to 8,365 ft, replacing it with a 1 mile wide horseshoe-shaped crater.

The magma in St. Helens burst forth into a large-scale pyroclastic flow that flattened vegetation and buildings for over 230 square miles. For more than nine hours, a vigorous plume of ash erupted, eventually reaching 12 to 16 miles above sea level. The plume moved eastward at an average speed of 60 miles per hour with ash reaching Idaho by noon.

Mount St. Helens showed significant activity on March 8, 2005, when a 36,000-foot plume of steam and ash emerged that was visible from Seattle. This relatively minor eruption was a release of pressure consistent with ongoing dome building. The release was accompanied by a magnitude 2.5 earthquake.

Campground in Cougar, WA (lower base of Mount St. Helens)

Giant PNW trees