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Another ride to Mt. St. Helens
This ride was up State Rt. 504 from its junction with I-5 at Castle Rock east to the Johnson Ridge Observatory. The Johnson Ridge Observatory is much closer to Mt. St. Helens than Windy Ridge, which is located farther east. There is no road between the two. The observatory looks like a bomb shelter and I assume was built to withstand another eruption.
Rt 504 follows the Toutle River, which bore the brunt of the flooding during the big 1980 eruption. You can see from the photos that areas within the blast zone have yet to recover, although one of my photos shows a large elk herd in the valley below the observatory. You can also see steam coming from the peak. This started the day before we arrived. That is Paul Geller and his new ST4s on the right side of the parking lot photo.
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Bill Anderson & Darkwing Duc (06-ST3s, black) Edmonds, WA. USA
Last edited by Bill_Anderson; Nov 9th, 2006 at 4:24 pm.
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