Yellowstone part 1

After leaving the awesome landscapes of Craters of the Moon, we pushed further on down the road through the forested and construction-riddled countryside that is eastern Idaho. Driving Hodor through narrow construction zones is never particularly enjoyable, but as always, we managed.

We pulled into our campsite at Henry’s Lake state park – which, in spite of its unremarkable name, was truly awe-inspiring.

Our morning view

We excitedly jumped out to check out our new road-home, but quickly jumped back in to grab our winter gear – near-freezing temperatures took us off guard, as we had just been in temps hitting 90+!

With nightfall upon us, though, we did a small amount of exploring the park, enjoyed a few adult beverages, and prepared ourselves for the caldera wonderland of Yellowstone, our nation’s FIRST national park.

Naturally, the first day that we visited the park was on Labor Day, so every major stop was PACKED. But it was hard to let that get to us with the majestic views of these one-of-a-kind volcanic features. As you may expect, the pictures hardly do them justice, but WOW – these are other-worldly.

Getting to spend as long as we wished at each feature enabled us to learn the ‘personalities’ of many of the volcanic features. We’d learn the alternating eruptions of various geysers within each geyser basin, and would learn to expect one to go off as soon as another finished. And how the strength of one geyser eruption would affect the strength of another.

And we’d learn when the best time to get a picture of any number of the pools based on the temperature and sunlight.

The combination of sulfur gas, heavy hot steam, and beautiful forested and mountainous scenery truly seemed as an earthly meeting point for the divinity of the heavens and the fires of hell.

Our first few days at Yellowstone were such a humbling experience. These beautiful geysers and pools were here long before we were, and will continue bubbling and steaming away long after we’ve left this life.

"There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred." –Theodore Roosevelt

More Yellowstone to come!

-E

Everything is Lava

On the road again, beautiful Idaho country.

Oh our way to Yellowstone, we stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. It's a sea of lava, and it is very strange to approach. The land has a warm tone for miles, scrubby vegetation and some trees. But in the distance, you see a swath of black. The borders of the lava flow are pretty well-defined.

Type "craters of the moon" into google maps/earth. Zoom out - you can see the pathway of the flows. Zoom in, and you can see the textures frozen in time. A lot of it still looks liquid!

The Shoshone Indians are believed to have witnessed eruptions. There are two different (though similar) legends about exploding mountains and melting hills. A spur of the Oregon Trail came through here, not a pleasant terrain for covered wagons. Check out this page for more history.

A cinder cone - not quite a volcano, but a vent in the crust that sputters up lava. It's built up over time by the volcanic debris. You can see another two cinder cones behind this one.

These little white plants have extensive root systems, they space themselves out evenly, and look like snow in the distance.

The hotspot that formed Craters of the Moon, is now beneath Yellowstone. It stays in place, but the North American Plate is moving southwest over it.

Onwards to Yellowstone! The grand finale of our serendipitous volcano tour.

Mount St. Helens

We drove up to Johnston Ridge Observatory to get a look at Mt. St. Helens. Admittedly, I wasn't expecting more than to marvel from a distance at the giant crater left from the eruption. But by the end of the day, I left completely fascinated with this remarkable place.

National Volcanic Monument - it's a thing. And the sign is ash-colored, not brown! You can see Hodor parked in the back.

The parking lot was full of people tail-gating the volcano with bbq and kite flying. We followed suit with beer and sandwiches. Bowie holds down the fort. 

 Here's a view from the observatory. The clouds were hanging over the top most of the day, so we weren't able to get a full look at it. Although, I suppose there's not much to see above the cloud-line anyways? That part of the mountain is gone. You can see right into the crater though.

We are about 5 miles away! I looks huge, of course, but even being there, it's still hard to perceive just how gigantic it is. The crater itself is a mile wide.

The Volcano and The Ed

Here's a closer shot of the landscape below. You can see the Toutle River re-establishing it's route through the pyroclastic material which was deposited by the volcanic lahars.

 Equipment for monitoring volcanic activity, set among the ruins of the forest.

The entire area was forested before the eruption. Young trees are growing back among the old white tree stumps, and there are wildflowers everywhere.

“The Eruption of Life” is the park motto, and it is a great contrast to the “moral of the story” that we've found throughout our national park tour. That bluntly being “Everything Dies.”

57 people were killed. The death toll would have been much higher though, were it not for David Johnston (he was a scientist who died in the eruption, the observatory is named for him) and the USGS convincing authorities to close the area to the public, despite heavy local pressure to re-open it. (It's usually a good idea to listen to those scientists..) There are moving stories and accounts of the eruption in the Johnston Ridge Observatory interpretation center. I think the USFS struck a perfect balance in their presentation between the life and death that this volcano has brought. 

But life finds a way. These prairie lupine flowers were the first signs of life to return to the barren area.

The eruption of Mt. St. Helens took everyone by surprise, in that the damage was so much further-reaching than expected. It was a lateral explosion, meaning that all of it's fury was consolidated in one general direction. This was the first time in recorded history that such a phenomenon was witnessed by anyone who lived to tell. 

Because of this, we've learned a lot about volcanic activity that was previously a mystery, along with the explosion of life that grew back from the ashes. It's a brand new landscape, and we get to see exactly how the geology is forming and the wildlife is progressing. (hint: a lot faster than anyone predicted!) The park newspaper encourages you to come back throughout your life to witness and compare the changes you see.

Fancy new facilities! Love that USFS seal.

                 

Research area! The entire place is a giant science lab. We hiked around the hummocks and got to see this brand new landscape close up. 

I love the park interpretive centers, but after that, you've got to get out IN it to find yourself a deeper understanding than a textbook can give you. Open the pic below in a new tab to read about similar hummocky landscapes around the world..and how we now know much more about them thanks to Mt. St. Helens.


We were standing on the red part - it was once part of the mountain!

New life grows among the rubble.

New ponds a little lakes have filled up among the hummocks. This is my favorite picture, you can see right into the crater.

We've been seeing these beautiful foxglove wildflowers all over the PNC, finally got a nice shot of one

There's so much more of this park I wish we could have seen, namely the Ape Caves. They're not technically caves, but lava tubes over two miles long! You can hike through them, but we were on the wrong side of the park for that.

On our way back down the mountains, we made a stop at the buried A-frame roadside attraction - the picture doesn't show very well how deep it was actually buried. The new, higher ground from the volcanic lahar flow has since washed out from in the front of the house, but that line you see on the door is the new ground level around the rest of the house.

There's also this fellow, along with a friendly kitschy-tacky gift shop, which is not even close to the kitschy-tacky you find at the roadside attractions back east! It's kind of hilarious to realize how gaudy things are, east of the Mississippi.

Check out this crazy time-lapse of the lava dome growth from 2004-2008. (In the previous blog post, video didn't want to embed here for whatever reason) The lava squeezes out like play-dough!