Let's go to the active volcano in our backyard. Mt St. Helens.

We'll carpool and leave at 10 am from Westside Top Foods. Look for us in the far corner near Jiffy Lube.

We'll drive to Johnston Ridge Observatory. Scope out some of the sights and take a hike (nothing too difficult) around Mt. St. Helens.

Please bring a sack lunch, water, and cash for drivers and entrance into the Observatory if the group chooses to go there.

Please plan on this taking the majority of your day. We'll get to the Mountain around noon. Look around for a couple of hours, enjoy lunch, and then drive back.

We may stop for Pizza on our way back.

Complete cloud cover and rain cancels this meetup.

[masked] is my cell phone.

About Johnston Ridge Observatory
The Johnston Ridge Observatory sits on a bluff just 5-1/2 miles from the crater at an elevation of 4,314'/1,327m and offers grand views of Mount St. Helens and much of the 1980 blast zone. This visitor center is the closest you can get to the mountain by car when driving in from the west and is located 53 miles east of the town of Castle Rock at the end of State Route 504.

Here you can enjoy spectacular views of the lava dome, crater, pumice plain and the landslide deposit.

A wide-screen theater presentation and interpretive displays depict the sequence of geologic events that changed the landscape. The video is a "must see". Be sure to stay for the curtain finale!

History Lesson
Mount St. Helens is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Mount St. Helens takes its English name from the British diplomat Lord St Helens, a friend of explorer George Vancouver who made a survey of the area in the late 18th century.

Mount St. Helens is most famous for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 am PDT which was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche caused an eruption, reducing the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 ft (2,950 m) to 8,365 ft (2,550 m) and replacing it with a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater. The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km3) in volume.