Mt. Rainer and Mt. St. Helens

At 9 A.M. I arrive at Tacoma BMW to get a few minor annoyances fixed. My oil fill cap is slowly making my left pant leg waterproof. They clean this up, check my brakes and admire my wire rims. The dealer mentions that I don't have radials anymore. Does this mean that I can now run 491s? In reality, they are radials on the bike, but they sure feel weird. The different sized tires and rims have made my sidestand useless and the bike wants to lie down on its left side. Maybe it's just tired, but hey, this isn't Florida yet.

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The roads in and around Mt. Rainier National Park provide the best views of a single mountain I've ever seen. There are multiple views of the peak which dominates the skyline. At one pullout, a ranger has a telescope trained on three climbers approaching the 14,000+ foot summit. They've got a good day for it. At another pullout a biker and I comment that there are worse places to be on a Friday afternoon. I haven't thought about work in several days now. Up near Paradise, snow has closed some of the side roads and the lakes are frozen. Mirror Lake is neither a mirror, or a lake as far as I can tell. The visitor's center at Paradise is a thing of beauty. Inside a ramp winds around the interior of the building taking you up to a viewing station. As good as the view is from here, the best views are still outside.

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 After these twisty roads I'm starting to trust the different tires and rims a little more. The roads up to Mt. St. Helens will further test my trust. There are two basic entrances to the park. The eastern entrance is less glamorous, but hasn't been touched by man since the blast. From the west, reforestation has begun. The east entrance is where the majority of the ash fallout occurred, while the west entrance is where the majority of the mud slides happened.
It take some time to reach the summit along a road that is challenging. Almost 20 years after the blast and the devastation is still prevalent. Very little is growing within 3 or 4 miles of the mountain. Dead skeletons of trees are piled along the shores of the lakes in the area. The scene is very surreal. Instead of having a visitor's center in this area, the rangers give talks in a small outdoor amphitheater.

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16-16.jpg (19052 bytes) Mt. Rainer in the distance
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Following the blast, a friend gave me a vial of ash from the explosion. Now I can put that small container into its proper perspective. What amazes me is that there were hundreds of warning tremors before the actual eruption. How could people not heed these warnings.

The road down is along a sheer drop off with few guardrails and demands your constant attention. Losing concentration here would be something you'd remember for a long time, if you survived. After a seemingly endless series of turns I'm in Cougar, paying way too much for gasoline and headed to I-5 and Portland, OR. It's almost 6 P.M. and traffic is a mess. In Tampa, on a Friday at this time, people would already be home or at the beach. These folks must really like Portland because they refuse to leave. It's 91 degrees and the bike is getting hot. I'm not going to push it through this traffic and elect to pull off and let it cool down. A few phone calls yield motels that are full for the night, but I stumble across an Econolodge and call it a day.