Recap of Mt. St. Helens Trip

We left the school at about 8:30 on Tuesday morning, we were all packed up and ready to go.
We arrived at Ape Caves and began the decent into the pitch black darkness. It is very cold inside the cave and it's dead silent except for the noise of our footsteps and voices. We looked at the walls of the cave and determined that the lava must have flown threw multiple times. The cave was created by lava flowing in the path of the river which may have been there at one point in time, many years ago. The cave was discovered by a lumberman in the 1950's. He did not want to enter the cave, so a boy scout troop that was in the area went in to check it out. The cave was named Ape Cave because the troop was looking for sasquatch at the time.
We hiked through the cave carefully stepping over rocks and looking around with our flashlights and lanterns.
We exited the cave, got back on the bus, and drove over to the Trail of Two Forests. We ate lunches and then and then took a short walk through the forest. We saw these perfect circles in the ground that were formed when lava came through the forest and made molds around the trunks of the trees, then the trees rotted away leaving circles in the hardened lava. We also crawled through a tiny
tunnel that was formed when lava surrounded a fallen tree. The trees have pretty much grown back now, but the moss and shrubs are just started to grow back.
We climbed back onto the bus and rode over to the Silver Lake Visitors Center. We walked around and viewed the exhibits and then we watched a movie about the Mt. St. Helen's eruption. I learned lots of facts about the mountain like it was named after Barron St. Helens.
We boarded the bus again and drove to the camp site. We set up our tents, ate dinner (burritos) had a campfire (with songs, skits, and a story from Ginny) and then we went to bed. The next morning we woke up at 7:30 and took down our tent. One of the girls in my tent had brought a giant three room tent, so I shared a room with only one other person.
We ate a breakfast of bagels and tea, and then we got on the bus.
Our first stop on the way home was the Johnson Ridge Observatory. The mountain was only about five miles away, so we had a great view! The wind was really blowing, so it was quite cold. We then went inside looked at the exhibits, and watched another movie about the eruption of the mountain.
The last place we went was Coldwater Creek. We stopped to eat lunch, and we took a small hike. It was really fun, and a very beautiful place.
We got back on the bus one last time, and began the long drive home. :)

posted by Sophia