Mount St. Helens

On Tuesday, June 15th, we went with a group of homeschoolers from our area on a field trip to Mount St. Helens. We learned a ton from Mr. Anderson, the owner of the 7 Wonders Creation Museum in Silverlake, Wa. He was an engaging teacher as we learned so much about what happened before and after the initial erruption, and just what we, as creationists, now have as an answer to 'old earth' thinkers. Great stuff! Check out his website and visit if you can! Here are a few pictures from our trip:

This is the best view we got of the mountain while we were at the Johnston Ridge Observatory. The weather was pretty socked in all day, and at one point in time we had a little over an inch of snow and ice pellets!
This is the view across the valley from the Johnston Ridge Observatory. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is some amazing topography there. Valleys that used to be there are filled in, new valleys created through solid rock, and a new river system created!
This picture is taken of the Toutle River, the one originating from the the Mount St. Helens watershed. This is many miles downriver from the mountain, yet we can still see the effects of the massive mudflow that reopened the Toutle River drainage to once again flow to the ocean. Almost 30 years later we can see how much of the river valley was under the mud!
Here we are at Coldwater Lake, just over the ridge from Mount St. Helens. The lake was created when the Mt. blew. Charles and the boys at Coldwater Lake, with the base of Mount St. Helens in the background (still totally cloud-covered!)

On the drive up the Toutle River to get to the observatory, we saw some amazing things. One of which was an entire area reforested and flourishing, some 44,000 acres of land hand planted with noble fir! Several herds of elk were also occupying the Monument lands, and the bulls were already branched out and HUGE! Wish we'd gotten some pictures, but I don't have the telephoto lens that I would have needed!