Mount St. Helens, WA

Photo by Joel Schat.  Lights of Portland behind Mt. St. Helens

The Mt. St. Helens experience was one of the best nights of my life. It was spontaneous, adventurous and inspiring.  Lugging the trailer behind us and being anxious to have the trailer looked over we were reluctant to visit Mt. St. Helens at all.  We settled on just going part way into the monument and heading back thereafter.

We stopped for a beautiful hike down to Spirit Lake where we witnessed new life springing back into the land. All life in this area was swept clean by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens thirty-three years ago.  Always wanting to see around the next bend, we ended up driving the whole way to the mountain.  From the parking lot, I noticed some steps leading up an adjacent mountain.  We thought "we're already here, why not just go up!". So the climb began up the endless steps to the spectacular view of Mt. Rainier, Hood Mt. and Mt. St. Helens.  

Atop the mountain we met Joel, a young Canadian traveling for photography in an 88' VW Westfalia. Instead of heading back as planned, we decided to hang out with Joel and be a part of his astrophotography.  We all slept in the parking lot right next to Mt. St. Helens. Joel inspired us to get a Westfalia and pursue photography as a means of funding our travels.  Click here to visit Joel Schat's homepage and see more amazing photos/time lapse video.