more Mt. St. Helens

On Saturday, we tried to visit Mt. St. Helens, but it was too foggy to see anything- so, we stayed in a town called Longview overnight in hopes of being able to see the volcano then next day. Longview is famous for having a little bridge that goes over a main road so that squirrels can safely cross the street. Unfortunately, we did not get to see any squirrels cross over it! Anyways, the next day, we tried to venture up the back side of the volcano. We were going to go in a cave forged from a lava tube and hike to some waterfalls. Unfortunately, all the roads to these things were closed due to snow! So, we went on the same route that we took the day before.
But, oh my goodness, was it worth it! We had great visibility on Sunday! It was amazing at how huge mt. St. Helens was once we finally got to see it!
We learned some cool things about the volcano: such as, it erupted out of the north/north-west side of the mountain so that is where most of the damage is. The blast was so strong that the trees closest to the blast were blown off of their stumps, farther away they were just blown over like logs, and farther away still, the leaves and branches were singed off of the trunks. you can still see a lot of these changes in the forest 20 years later in the different zones; however, they have replanted a lot of the forest furthest away from the volcano. The eruption also caused massive mudslides... the larges mudslide in recorded history.

Also, the blast was heard all the way in Canada, but because of how it erupted no one in the east, south, or west of the volcano heard it- so for awhile a lot of people close by did not even know that it had erupted. Also, there was a 60 mile radius around the volcano that did not hear it at all because the sound when straight into the atmosphere and bounced back down to the earth miles away. I thought that was pretty cool. Also, after it erupted, the wind carried the ash east.. all the way to Montana! Anyways, the sight was really beautiful and amazing once you think about the history that surrounds it. We all really enjoyed ourselves.
On the way home we went to the Emerald Queen Casino. That was a good time too!