Day 43: to Mount Saint Helens and Merrill Lake

August 3, 2014

66.07 miles
6:20:07 Ride Time

I am in very good physical condition.  My camera is in good physical condition again so I have tons of photos for today.

Good morning from Lewis River! Another night of cowboy camping.

Biked along Merwin Lake, which is actually a reservoir. It was extremely hot and I was glad to have water nearby.

You can go swimming whenever you want!

It was another long, gueling climb up to the park. If you stop pedaling, you stop moving. Constantly in the lowest gear. No downhill breaks. Trust me, it was tough.

 But you climb and come around a bend and this makes all the climbing worth it.

I chanced upon a lumberjack falling this tree.

I went to "Lava Canyon," which is a canyon where lava flow burned and plowed over all the foliage and revealed this impressive set of falls. Before the erruption in 1980 you wouldn't be able to see any of this.

There was an awesome suspensino bridge over the canyon.

 And I also loved this ladder which has no real safety features to speak of, and goes 25? 30 feet? It's funny because on the "easy" section of the trail they have huge signs saying "STAY ON TRAIL! PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM LEAVING THE TRAIL!" But as soon as you get to the "very difficult" section, they figure you know what the hell you are doing.

35 years ago the mountain was thousands of feet taller and there was lava and then suddnely it erupted and this valley was full of lava and ash and pyroclastic flow and everything was crazy.

The woman who took this picture for me gave me a delicious doughnut from a famous bakery in Portland.

And then I descended the 20 miles back down the mountain, which was the icing on the cake after putting the effort to climb it. And then I took a chance and climbed 6 more miles to get to a campground that I knew nothing about. And I wasn't going to pay money to camp, so this was a relatively big risk.

My gamble of 6 miles of steep climbing (after ascending and descending St. Helens) paid off big time, as the campsite was free, only had 1 obnoxious family, and best of all, was on a non-motorized trout lake nestled in the mountain hills. It's called Merrill Lake.

Sunset swims make a great day everything better.

Funny moment: As I went down to swim, I startled some skinny-dipping motorbikers who were trying to get out of the lake without being noticed. Hooray for them! I'm glad they weren't wangin' their dangs all up in children's faces like they do in Canada. (newspaper from Day 34)