Mt. St. Helens Ride - Ducati.ms

Bill_Anderson · Jul 10th, 2006, 11:14 pm

Yesterday (07/9/2006) My buddy Craig and my son Daren riding two up with me rode to the Windy Ridge observation point of Mt. St. Helens, then looped around the east and south flanks via Forest Road 25 to Forest Road 90 to Washington Hwy. 503. Hwy 503 runs into I-5 at Woodland. It was a long, 416 mile day, especially for Daren. On the final leg up to Windy Ridge, you can see four peaks of the Cascade Range: Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Hood in Oregon. I ran into Andrew Cox (ACPDX ) from Portland at the Windy Ridge parking lot.

Mt. St. Helens was venting steam this day, which you can see in the attached photos. Note the dirty snow from recently erupted ash. Windy Ridge is in the Mt. S. Helens blast zone and is surrounded by timber downed in the 1980 eruption. Plant life is marginal as the top soil got blasted away as well.

Picture captions (left to right): 1) Windy Ridge parking lot, 2) Spirit Lake,
3) Mt. Adams, 4) east side of Mt. St, Helens, 5) Mt. St. Helens venting.

**John** · Jul 16th, 2006, 11:56 am

I sidetracked to look at the volcano on my way to Seattle last year. Hard to describe the power of that eruption, I was amazed. I understand they just opened some trails closer to the volcano. For anyone visiting the Portland/Seattle area, Mt. St. Helens is a must see. It is truly a humbling experience.

ducatimike · Jul 16th, 2006, 6:42 pm

I camped out at what was Spirit Lake in 1979, one year before the volcano blew its top. I havent been back since, but from the pictures I have seen, things have changed alot. Beautiful part of the country.

Mike

BlueST2 · Jul 26th, 2006, 4:31 pm

FWIW, I think it's really nice that your son likes to go for rides with you on your Duc. It reminds me of when I was kid and would ride everywhere with my dad on his Hondas...ah, the good ole' days.

I'll have to wait a while before I can even contemplate allowing my daughter to ride with me...she only 2 1/2 now and obviously need to be older.

Cheers,

Thomas

Bill_Anderson · Jul 28th, 2006, 10:38 am

My son has turned out to be quite the trooper. He prefers we travel in a group. I think he does not feel so self conscious dressed in all the motorcycle gear when we are with other riders as opposed to when we are riding alone.

Bill_Anderson · Nov 5th, 2006, 1:11 pm

A buddy of mine made this video of his ride to Windy Ridge. I think it is worth watching to get a feeling of one of the most unique rides in North America. After riding through the blast zone, you are greeted by the only currently active volcano in the lower 48 states.
http://nwbikers.com/WRD_WindyRidge.html
Click on the third video, "Windy Ridge", to get a real time ride. The first video is a speeded up joke.

**John** · Nov 5th, 2006, 7:20 pm

I was getting sick with all the video cutting/starting. I got the idea tho, nice road for a Multistrada.

Bill_Anderson · Nov 9th, 2006, 5:17 pm

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.

Bill_Anderson · Mar 19th, 2007, 12:33 am

In what is developing into a PNW tradition, several motorcycle groups met today in Castle Rock, Washington (off I-5), to ride Washington Hwy. 504 to the Johnson Observatory of Mt. St. Helens. About 60 riders ranging from Portland to Seattle showed up for the event. A small group of sport bikes departed first, followed by three of us in what I would call sport touring segment. We were followed by the rest of the group, which was primarily cruisers.

There were only two Ducatis in the entire goup: Daren & I on my ST4s and Fred on his Ministrada. Since it is yellow, he has no need for the full size MS engine. We were 2/3 of the Sport Touring segment, the other guy being on a Beemer. The sport bikers ahead of us were doing all they could to draw the attention of whatever law enforcement may have been on the road, so we kept a reasonable pace. Unlike the cruisers, we don't have to slow down for corners :>)

The road to Johnson Observatory is open only as far as Cold Lake. We parked for some photos and turned around. The weather was more overcast than cold, but fortunately there was no rain. Daren was sleepy all day, so I took the direct route home up I-5 while Fred and the other sport tourer found more interesting roads back to the Seattle area. You can see all three of our bikes in the last photo as we got ready to leave.

Bill_Anderson · Mar 20th, 2007, 8:58 pm

The guy that organized the ride made a video of the departure. Daren and I made a cameo appearance. You can see Fred on his yellow Multi and Doug on his silver Beemer departing. The three of us made up the "sport touring" group behind the sport bikes but ahead of the cruisers and Goldwings.
http://www.nwbikers.com/VID_EOW07Start.html