Hiking Coldwater Lake

Yesterday we did a bit of hiking around the Coldwater Lake area at Mt. St. Helen’s. As we got closer to the mountain, the temperature began to drop…

It’s not very clear, but it says 45!

Thankfully, the boys were prepared for just about everything! In fact, it was almost disappointing that we didn’t get lost… ;o)

The first trail we hit was the Hummocks Trail. This 2.4 mile loop wandered through the hummocks at the base of the mountain that were formed during the 1980 eruption. It wandered past some ponds and just above the river.

Hitting the trail… with our jackets

Riley is playing King of the Mountain!

The view from Riley’s mountain

We even saw a few critters on the trail…

a duck…

& a cute little frog

it didn’t take long to lose the jackets…

We made it!!!

After lunch at Coldwater Lake, we decided to try to find the logging equipment destroyed by the eruption on South Coldwater trail… after all, how hard could it be???

the boys had trouble following the rules from the start… ;o)

the road we drove in on

the hummocks we hiked through earlier

the mountain

the lake we ate lunch at

the clouds (which were now at the same level we were)

looking WAY down at the lake

It wasn’t so much that it was so far as it was that it was that we just seemed to be climbing higher and higher and higher… We climbed 1300 feet in 2 miles!!!

You don’t realize how big Coldwater is until you are so far above it!

And just when we thought we couldn’t go any farther, Andy called from further up the trail to say that we had finally made it…

The poor old thing didn’t fare well in the blast! On the other hand… it fared pretty well through the blast. I was kind of disappointed that more people didn’t know about it. Andy pointed out that it was a good thing more people didn’t know about it… As you can see, no one has really disturbed it. Best part: NO graffiti!

Here are some great close-ups that Will took:

The hike down was much easier!

an old water truck

thank heaven that Riley and Zack were able to hold that log up so we could pass under… LOL

Thanks Megan and Riley for a very fun day! We can’t wait to go back and take Chris!!!