Day 59, Saturday, August 13

I found out this morning that while Ironwood campsite has running water, what they lack is showers. I don’t know if any of you have had to chance to put your head into the same helmet day in, day out for 60 days, but I’ll tell you that if you don’t wash your hair every day, you’re gonna end up with a phenomenally smelly helmet. Nasty and definitely not desirable. Solution? Wash your hair every day in any way you can.. Result at Ironwood? An extremely cold hair washing and wash down this morning at the spigot by the side of the road at 7:00 this morning. The water was so cold it felt like it was burning my scalp. Let me tell you, if I wasn’t awake before that treatment, I sure as HELL was afterwards!. As I was leaving the campsite, I stopped briefly to speak with the camp hosts, an older couple, I’d guess both in their late 60’s or early 70’s. I’m embarrassed to admit that I wrote down their names and even their address, but for the life of me I can’t find the paper I wrote it on at the moment. I’m sure I’ll find it eventually. It turns out that he was preparing himself to be a clown in a local Lumberjack Day Parade and she was putting on his make up. After speaking with her for a little while she told me to hold on a minute so that she could get a picture of me and her husband in full garb. What she didn’t tell me is that she was going to bring me out a warmed up McDonalds apple pie and a half a loaf of banana bread. I’ve been given more free food this trip than I would ever have guessed before setting out.
Mt St Helens is one helluva sight. Even if you didn’t know what you were coming up upon, you’d certainly know that some cataclysmic event had occurred in the surrounding forest in very recent history. The forest that was literally laid to waste by the pyroplastic cloud is very eerie. Having driven through several areas of severe deforestation due to fire, I was used to seeing all of the seared and scarred trees lying on the ground What I’d never seen before is all of the trees laying down facing away from a common source. A source that had obviously exploded and knocked them all over. In a way, it looked like someone had gone over the hills with a huge hair brush aligning all the trees.
Getting a little closer another interesting phenomenon I noticed was how abrupt the edge of the damage was. Sort of the way the Cinder Cone at Lassen had deposited the rocks with a distinct edge, so also, the super heated dust cloud from St. Helens seemed to have simply stopped at a certain distance from the blast. There were sections of age old trees showing no damage at all right next to areas where all the trees had been charred and toppled.
Another thing I’d not expected to see was how much St Helens has started growing again. I was talking with a couple of geologists (also motorcycle riders) there and both of them seemed to think another blast was imminent in the near future (near future in geological terms, I hope….)
After a morning spent at St Helens, I headed over to Mt Rainier where I was disappointed to find that all of the campsites in the park were booked an in use. A ranger suggested I pitch my tent in a meadow beside a local hotel and then check back tomorrow when she guaranteed me there’s be lots of camp sites available. That turned out to be great advice. I pitched my tent and parked the trailer then went for a ride through the park unloaded. Mt Rainier is stunning.