Mount St. Helens

Tuesday was the start of our last summer camping trip.  We finished packing up, had everyone go to the bathroom and get ready to pile in the car...  The last step was to get Tido to his cage in the car.  I knew putting his cage in was a pain so I decided to put it in and bring him out to the car by hand.  Keep in mind I've had him outside with me before.  He would just hang out and even cower on my arm.  Well, this ended up being the worst possible decision.  For whatever reason, Tido decided that that day was the day he would really fly... Boy did he.  He circled the house and several of the neighbors' houses.  We called, held our arms up, did the standard things that would normally get him to come to us in the house.  Instead he decided to go land in a tree in the greenbelt, near the river, behind our neighbor's house.  

Fortunately we are friends and I was able to go through their yard and in to the green belt.  Daddy had seen him land in the tree and Kayda (with THE most obnoxiously high pitched screech a human can make) got Tido to occasionally make some noise.  We knew he was in the tree, but it turns out he is perfectly colored to blend in completely with that tree.  We could NOT see him. So Daddy and I took turns climbing up the weedy tree, with limbs of questionable strength, attempting to find the bird.  After an hour and a half it got too hot and we were really frustrated.  So we stopped and sat outside eating lunch.  Hoping the bird would chase us down for food, which he normally would do at home.  It didn't work.  So we climbed again.  

This time Daddy climbed even higher until it was absolutely too dangerous to go higher... and he saw the bird.  Way out on one of the branches.  He called to Tido, who of course wouldn't budge.  Daddy was able to get another branch and get Tido to climb on to it.  Then he got Tido on to his shoulder.  Keep in mind he's WAY up in a tree.  He had to get down.  I had tried climbing with the bird carrier earlier and the branches were so tight that it made it nearly impossible to make progress, but we were going to try again.  Before we could, Tido climbed up Daddy's arm and hopped out onto a branch again.  Daddy got a branch to reach for him again.... then Tido was gone.  He blasted out of the tree, circled the houses nearby, went to the other side of the street, circled houses and then flew off into the hazy afternoon.  Kayda and I ran out, jumped in the car and followed to the best of our ability.  We wandered around, Kayda with her obnoxious screech and me pausing at every sound.  Daddy and the boys walked the neighborhood.  We thought we heard him once but couldn't get him to make his noise again. 

 At that point we really didn't know what to do.  We went home, pulled his cage out back and sat.  We were sure we would never see that bird again.  We decided to make some arrangements, just in case, and head on our trip.  There are SO many hawks and eagles near where we live that we didn't think he would make it.  

So we headed to Beaver Bay Campground.  Kayda, of course, had a really hard time going to sleep that night.  We had no cell service so we had no way to check and see if he had been seen.  So first thing in the morning I drove in toward town to find reception.  Tido had been found!  Some local girls had been able to coax him in to his carrier (which Cassie brought to them).  So Kayda and I headed back him to get him.  The boys ended up stuck at the campground for the day since we had the car.  They played in the lake, and on the playground, and generally managed to stay entertained.  

 The boys were playing "American Ninja Warrior" on the playground.  Daddy would give them different ways they had to do things, for example, they would have to do the monkey bars doing 360's.

They found a couple of rocks to jump off of. These pictures were right after Kayda and I made it back.  Carson had been jumping early but I didn't get any pictures.

Here is the bird, safe and sound in his travel cage.  I am so angry with this bird, so is Daddy.  He's getting his wings clipped ASAP.  I'd been putting it off.  I learned my lesson, I'm not dealing with that again.

The kids had a great time with the hatchet.  They were constantly finding logs to try to chop.  They also used their pocket knives to saw the smaller branches.  All under supervision and with rules in place, of course.

Thursday we finally go to do what we had set out to do.  It was supposed to happen Wednesday but we were retrieving the bird.  So we headed up to Ape Cave.  After talking with the kids we decided to do the Upper passage.  It is longer and requires some climbing and scrambling, it certainly sounded like more fun. It is the longest known lava tube in North America so why not do the longer portion?  Our kids are pretty sturdy and adventurous so we thought we'd try it.

 Carson had a hard time with the cold and wanted to turn around for the first 30 minutes or so.  Daddy kept coaxing him to keep going.  Kayda and Dillon were set to go and we frequently had to have them slow down to wait for us.  Eventually Carson started to enjoy the challenge of it.  He'd hold our hands and tuck his into his sleeves then follow along beside us.  After quite a while he decided to hold his own flashlight again and started finding his own paths through the rock piles. There was a place with an 8 foot wall.  Everything I had read indicated there was a rope to help you scale it... there was NOT a rope to help you scale it.  Fortunately Daddy was able to help the kids and then we were able to get ourselves up.  There were a couple parts that were too high for the kids so it's good they're still small enough to boost.

 Dillon was trying to find the hardest possible routes so in one place he went through a side you could only crawl through while the rest of us went around.

 Finally found the skylight!

At the end Dillon decided he wanted to go to the "natural end" of the lava tube so he and Daddy headed off.  It only took them a few minutes to get back to us though. 

Then we had to hike back to the beginning.  It started out all well and good, no big deal.  We had all enjoyed ourselves and we had lunch waiting at the car.

Then Carson decided that his legs hurt.  We were able to coax him along until he started a tantrum.  I sent Daddy, Kayda and Dillon ahead.  Carson wouldn't budge.  He cried and he cried HARD.  Multiple people passed us and I kept showing him the other kids saying "hey look at them, I bet they're tired too."  I refused to carry him, he is six and still thinks he should be carried everywhere whenever he feels like it.  Well, I'm done with that. So I half dragged him down the trail.  Finally, after about 15 minutes I got him to start moving again.  The deal was he just had to get to the parking lot and THEN I would carry him.  It was a LONG hike out.

Since we were supposed to have two full days I had planned two hikes.  Ape Cave was kind of unimportant to me.  Where I really wanted to go was the Lewis river falls.  There are three portions, upper, middle and lower.  The entire hike is about 9 miles round trip so I knew we wouldn't make it the whole day.  But I had REALLY hoped to see the lower falls.  It was decided we would go straight from Ape Cave to go the the falls.  Carson and Daddy could hang out in the car, Kayda and Dillon would hike with me.  Turns out it wasn't much of a hike.  To get down to the water of lower falls wasn't even a quarter mile.  Though you do have to go off the main trail (which I normally try NOT to have my kids do).

  I had brought swimsuits, but thinking Carson and Daddy were staying in the car (so we wouldn't have time to swim), I left them there.  I really should've just gone back to the car to get them.  We were able to cross the river and get right up to the waterfall and the water was BEAUTIFUL.  

Kayda was almost surprised she was getting wet when she was standing there.

She had slipped on the way across so she was going to dunk her shorts, she was cracking us up.

If there is a log, it MUST be climbed. 

Back on the main side of the river you can walk along a little cove and there is water coming through the rock and out the plants.

The pictures don't do it justice.  The pool was such a vibrant color.  Unfortunately it was getting later in the evening and the shadows were starting to take over the area.  I easily, and happily, could've spent an entire day just in this one location.  It's definitely one we'll come back to, and hopefully explore the other two as well.

We played a lot of board games this trip.  Turns out the kids are much more easily entertained when other kids are around!

You'd think this kid never had a smore before.  He was a sticky mess by the end.  It reminded me so much of when the kids were really little.

Friday we packed up and moved to Seaquest State Park.  Basically the opposite side of Mount St. Helens. We spent the day Saturday going to all three visitor centers (there are four but one was closed).  The kids did great with the drive and we were able to watch a few of the films and a junior ranger presentation.

All three kids got to be volunteers for part of the presentation. Kayda was representing Johnston Ridge in the reproduction of the eruption.

The boys got to use alka seltzer tablets to shoot the tops off film containers.

The kids got junior ranger badges and certificates for participating in the presentation. 

If you can see the mound of dirt along the valley they are called hummocks and are parts of the top of Mount St. Helens when it had the triggering landslide.

It was really interested to read and see everything about the eruption.  There were a lot of things I didn't remember from my last visit.  This map was particularly interesting to me.  Everything started in March of 1980 when there was a shallow, 4.1 earthquake directly under Mount St. Helens.  They set up extra monitoring and watched while the earthquakes became more frequent.  They watched a crater begin to form, and then a bulge on the North side of the mountain.  The "bulge" grew 450 ft over the course of 3 months.  The scientists saw the development of "harmonic tremors" which are basically one non-stop earthquake that typically proceed an eruption.  Finally, a month later (April 30th) they set up hazard areas... the red and blue zones seen in the map.  Not even a month after that (May 18th) the eruption happened.  It started as one major landslide, the entire north face practically melted off the mountain, it was the largest landslide ever recorded.   The landslide (yellow)  reached as far as 14 miles away.  The first part of the landslide went 8 miles in 12 seconds, the second part went 11 miles in 5 minutes and the last slide went 14 miles in 12 minutes.   Then came the lateral blast out the newly exposed side of the mountain; its scorching gas and debri blasted down trees and tore some right out of the ground (light green).  When it started to slow it created scorch zones where it basically cooked the trees where they stood (dark green).  There were no fires because there wasn't oxygen for fires.  Then the pumice flow came out, finally some magma.  Apparently, it would trap pockets of water, then, because it was so hot, it would cause a mini eruption and create a crater in the pumice stone.  These little blasts happened randomly for weeks, months and in one case a YEAR after the initial eruption.  So the new pumice field was littered with craters.  All the heat melted huge portions of the glaciers and of course caused lahars that reached as far as 50 miles away.  The eruption formed an ash cloud that reached about 12 miles vertically.  The ash coated Washington and fell as far away as Oklahoma.  One of the things they didn't expect was that wet ash is an amazing conductor of electricity so it was causing problems with power lines everywhere it fell.

All of this was fascinating to me but it amazes me that the majority of the area closed by the government for the safety of the public was SOUTH of the mountain, despite the fact they were watching the bulge develop on the NORTH side.  Of the 57 people that died only 3 of them were in the restricted zone.  The rest were all where they were considered "safe".  The government did lower the water level on the dams anticipating flooding which helped some with damage control...  As much as you can control the damage of a volcano.  We also found out that the mountain continued to have eruptions throughout the summer of 1980.  There was regular activity and growth in its lava dome in the crater up until 2008.

Kayda and Dad walked up to a higher viewpoint hoping to see more of Mt. Rainier.  The were disappointed.

More card games... and board games right up to leaving Sunday morning.

The kids were troopers with all the driving we did.  Kayda and Dillon are quite the adventurous kiddos.  They're ready to do most anything you put in front of them.  Carson just gets tired.  I don't think he has figured out how to enjoy hiking just yet.  I'll keep working on him though!  

Olympic Peninsula Trip

This Spring Break we decided to take a short trip to the Olympic Peninsula.  Some of it the kids have seen before so we wanted to take them to some of the places they/we have never been.  It was 3 nights packed full of driving (600 miles) and sight seeing.  The kids had a blast!

 First stop was the Sol Duc Hot Springs.  They smelled a little like sulfur but not overpowering and somehow it didn't make US stink.  There were three "pools" we spent most of the time in the smallest.  It was perfect at just shy of 100 degrees.  The largest was around 102 and the medium pool was right around 107.  They also had a freshwater, unheated pool, hanging out around 55 degrees.

Kayda and Daddy jumped in and swam across the unheated pool!  Their skin was bright red when they got out because of how cold it was.  Daddy and Kayda ended up jumping in twice, Dillon and Carson each went in once.  Carson REALLY didn't like it.  I was waiting right next to him and was able to pull him out quickly.  

We were surprised by how many birch trees were in the area.  The kids took to calling them "ghost trees" because of how white they were, especially when they're surrounded by evergreen trees. 

We ended our first day in Neah Bay, well, the ocean side opposite Neah Bay.  It was a perfect evening!  There was no wind and no rain.  The kids played just like they always do at the beach.  Dillon was having a rough day but as soon as the sand was beneath his toes you could see the tension drain out of him. Kayda collected shells and the boys ran in and out of the waves.  We only headed back in because Carson's toes got too cold!

We started Thursday out strong with the Cape Flattery trail.  It's only about 1.5 miles round trip.  It's actually a pretty neat trail!  They have board walks and even wood rounds put in the ground for the swampier sections.  The kids had a great time playing "American Ninja Warriors" treating each section of the trail like an obstacle.

 Cape Flattery is considered the Northwestern tip of the contiguous United States.  The kids really wanted to go to the lighthouse but that wasn't an option.

After the hike we headed south! Well, back inland and then south.  We headed down to Forks.  We got to the hotel too early to check in so we decided to go straight for Second beach.  I had heard that it was a beautiful beach but you have to hike to it.  The hike wasn't difficult at all.  It was another 1.5 mile round-trip trail.  The kids loved looking around at the forest.  A big favorite were the trees that you could see under, through their roots. It was really nice because it actually minimized the number of people on the beach.  It was fairly empty.  The boys played in the sand for the couple hours we were there.  Kayda went between playing in the sand and wandering around with Daddy taking pictures. The weather was about perfect!  It actually doesn't get much better than that on the Washington coast!  It was around 60 degrees with barely a breeze!

 After a couple hours it was getting close to time to head back for food.  But before we left we went and put on shoes so we could climb one of the sea stacks.  The kids loved it, I know I loved it as a kid... but holy cow was I a nervous wreck having my kids up there!

Up on top!  Probably around 50ft high!

The next morning it was time to go to the rainforest!  Of course there were high wind warnings in place for the day and a rare spring storm which meant more rain too!  The visitor center was kind of a let down.  There wasn't any displays or any kind of information about the forest.  After looking at the options.  We decided the two loop trails (2 miles together) wasn't enough.  We chose to go to mineral creek falls.  2.7 miles up the Hoh River Trail.  The trail eventually goes up to the glaciers.

We took off feeling pretty optimistic.  The kids were having a great time looking at the huge trees and the coatings of moss.

What we didn't expect was how swampy it would be.  We were constantly finding ways around or over huge puddles.  There were whole trees downed across the trail to climb over too.  Carson got tired, so we carried him for a while.  Then he started getting cold.  He was done at 1.8 miles.  Daddy took him back to the car.

Kayda and Dillon wanted to try to find the waterfall so on we went.  The farther in we got the worse the trail got.  At one point the entire trail disappeared into a sea of water.  You couldn't tell where it went because it was under anywhere from 6 inches to a foot of water (depending on the spot).  We decide to follow a little trail around the side to see if we could find the main trail.  The agreement was that if it wasn't obviously the trail, we would turn around.  Fortunately, it brought us around the bog to some stairs.  After that we came to the stream crossing the trail.  We got to use the tree bridges, the kids thought it was great fun!

We continued along and at 2.7 miles we found the waterfall.  It was too cold and too wet to stay for long. We took a quick photo and headed back.

It was a rough trip back, the puddles were even deeper, making it harder to follow the trail.  The kids were cold, Kayda had twisted her ankle and they were tired.  They were total troopers.  I had to carry Kayda for a little while toward the end.  After cheering them on, watching how hard they were working to keep going for the last 1.5 miles it was actually kind of emotional when we got to the end. Considering we don't hike often this was pretty ambitious.  That being said, if the trail were drier I think they would've been just fine the whole way.  5.4 miles in the rain and cold is a bit much for most people.  They were both happy that they'd done it and were proud to have made it to the water fall.  It doesn't seem to have put them off hiking.  In the forest we were fortunate and only heard/felt the wind gusts a few times. When we got to the visitor center the storm had knocked out the power.  The further west we drove, out of the forest, the windier it got.  There was all kinds of debri on the road and we had to drive over some freshly fallen, large, branches.  It was a long 45 minutes to get back to the hotel!

The last morning, Saturday!  We treated the kids with a breakfast out, they all thought this bench was the coolest and wanted a picture.  There were a few places we had wanted to see on Friday but were too beat up from the hike to make it. So we decided we'd try to see them on the way home.

We saw a sign for "The Big Cedar" and decided to check it out.  It's dead.  but it has a bunch of other trees growing out of the stump now.  It is basically a group of gnarly roots all wrapped around a huge stump.  A large portion had fallen down which was definitely a bummer.

 Then we stopped by Ruby beach.  The tide was in and the water was all murky from the storm.  You couldn't see any of the rocks that the beach is known for.  We opted for a quick look then took off for the next vista.

 Ruby beach... not that you'd know it from it's current state.

 Next came Kalaloch.  None of the kids have ever seen this beach, I was pregnant with Kayda the last time we were here. Dillon wasn't interested in looking so he and I hung out in the car.

The other two went down to the tiny strip of beach with Daddy.  It was another quick look but they've seen it now!  It was a busy, tiring trip.  We all had a good time even if none of us slept well.  Having two kiddos with colds didn't help.  For the most part the kids did great!  We're trying to work up the motivation to take them on more hikes.  They're all pretty interested, Carson is the only "maybe".

We managed to get all the different weather for the area.  We had rain, beautiful sunshine, a wind/rain storm, we drove through snow between the rain forest and Ruby beach and it was hailing as we got home.  Definitely eventful!