The Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center is closed - at least for the season. Although there were enough cars there that they would have been doing quite a brisk business had they been open. But this has been a very dry winter, especially February. The parking lot was closed off, so we just parked on the edge of the road before the gate and walked in.
In fact the better views were along a road marked as "Forest Service Only", or some such. Everyone there walked up it to get a better view of the mountain; better in this case means seeing more into the crater.
The lava dome, at least the older part, is "sort of" visible in this photo, but so is the steam coming from the crater - from the hot rock oozing out and melting the snow. The Johnson Ridge Visitor Center is on the next ridge towards the mountain. That is closed, I believe until the current activity slows down.
Just some other mountain, likely too far away to have been affected by the 1980 blast, even though it's on the north side of Mt. St. Helens, the direction in which the mountain side exploded.
A view of the mountain with the building/erupting lava dome (just) visible.
A closer view, in which the new lava dome is quite visible.
After spending some time enjoying the scenery, it was time to head home again. But as our timing would have put us into the worst of Seattle's rush hour traffic, we stopped at Stanley and Seafort's restaurant in Tacoma, and had an excellent dinner with a view over downtown Tacoma and that part of Puget Sound as the sun was setting. A wonderful end to a great day.
Along The Road
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