I Blew My Top at Mount St. Helens

Mom and I went up to Sunrise last Wednesday. Sunrise is on the east side of the park and sits at 6400 feet. It is a 2 hour drive from Longmire. It was a sweltering hot day. We hiked up to Frozen Lake which was a mild 3 mile round trip hike. We saw a five point buck standing in the lupine meadows with the mountain in the background. It was a national geographic moment that was completely missed by my camera. On Thursday, we drove 3 hours to Mount St. Helens. It was devastatingly beautiful. The valley is a wide barren river of ash surrounded by slopes of fallen trees and new families of evergreens. The blue lupine were the first flower to regenerate the area after the explosion and dot the landscape. Our living planet reminds us that life can change abruptly but time slowly creates new hope. Saturday, we visited the Grove of the Patriarch, the site of my previous encounter with the Frog Prince, and then hiked to Snow Lake, a 2 1/2 mile hike to a beautiful glacier fed lake. It was another oppressively hot day that made us melt and ultimately ended with Longmire's infamous blackberry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream.