My first hike in the blast zone of Mt Saint Helens. Pulling into a busy parking lot with a food cart and then waiting in line at the visitor center for an $8 day pass did not seem like a promising start to a wilderness experience. A few miles out we were able to ditch the crowds and enjoy this dramatic and surprisingly barren landscape, littered with downed trees that are all eerily pointing in the same direction as a result of the eruption in 1980. What an incredible area. I can't believe it has taken me this long to explore some of it.