With the last bit of snow melting in Southern California, I thought I’d finish off the season with a post about Mt. St. Helens and Falls Creek Falls, a beautiful waterfall area tucked away in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington.
Mt. St. Helens
During my trip to Portland, Oregon for the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network conference, I took a few extra days to explore the area. The last time I visited the Pacific Northwest, I was just a kid. As someone who loves cold, muggy weather, fall colors, and waterfalls, I took full advantage of this opportunity.
On the way to Mt. St. Helens, I stopped by Yale Lake and the Swift Reservoir to take a quick break. The fall colors enchanted me. In the following shot, I wanted the bright yellow hues to come through and bumped up my exposure value to +1.0EV and darkened the image later in Lightroom. I love the contrasting colors of the yellow foreground against the green background.
Since all of the best places to view Mt. St. Helens were closed due to snow, here’s the best shot I could get:
I’m not all that happy with it, but that just means I’ll need to go back!
Ape Cave
I was actually quite scared when I took this particular trip into Washington. The area experienced heavy snow a couple of weeks before, and not a lot of people were around since it was a work day. I also didn’t have reception, and my GPS kept going in and out. So I navigated old school – just by using a map and road signs, just like my mother taught me when I was young! I remember approaching Ape Cave and thinking that I probably should have filled the gas tank. Also, I don’t have much experience driving on icy roads, and the temperature was sure to drop to below freezing at that altitude. I figured that as long as I was careful and kept my eye on the weather, I’d be fine!
Ape Cave is actually a lava tube resulting from a Mt. St. Helens eruption about 2000 years ago. Lava tubes originate from – you guessed it – lava. When the surface lava begins to cool, the liquid lava beneath the surface still flows, forming a tunnel. After an eruption ends, the lava empties out, leaving behind a lava tube. Ape Cave is currently the third largest lava tube in North America at over 4000m long! A scout troop first explored the cave in the 1950s and named it after their sponsor: the St. Helens Apes. Here’s a shot of the entrance:
And here’s how far I got before chickening out and going back to the car:
Hey, it was pitch black and no one else was around. I got scared! There were noises!
Falls Creek Falls
On the way back to Portland, I decided to take a different route to explore more of the area. I had the Falls Creek Falls hike bookmarked as a “MUST SEE” in my traveling notes, and hiked it before it got too cold. It’s about a 5mi loop, moderate difficulty. As with at Mt. St. Helens, the trail was almost deserted, which was really nice as I’ve read that it can get moderately busy. If you are ever in the area, I highly suggest visiting this 100ft waterfall. If you’re lucky, you might be able to spot elk, beaver, and otter! The waterfall is very unique and is surrounded by beautiful foliage. For this shot, I set up my tripod and used an ND8 filter to allow me to lengthen my shutter speed to 50sec.
For the shot, I also wanted to give the waterfall room to breathe in the frame. To do this, I moved back a bit to include the greenery above the waterfall. In addition, I included some foreground foliage to add a bit of depth to the shot. I really like the shot because the waterfall looks almost like it could be hidden, only to be discovered when reaching the halfway mark in the trail loop.
Needless to say, although my trip to Mt. St. Helens had some obstacles, hiking Falls Creek Falls made the entire trip worth it!
A Bit of History of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest
Since Falls Creek Falls was my favorite part of this road trip, I dug deeper into the history of its location: the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
Native Americans used the forest as hunting grounds back when alpine glaciers were around. As temperatures warmed, the natives actually burned some of the areas to increase huckleberry yield.
Beavers and other fur-bearing animals attracted the first European settlement in 1824, who called the area called Fort Vancouver. In the 1890s, miners and loggers arrived and took full advantage of the resources found in the forest. The forest became part of the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve in 1897, and was named the Columbia National forest in 1908. Its name was changed in 1949 after Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service.
The landscape we see today resulted from efforts of the Great Depression. World Wars I and II led to massive projects to protect the forest, and the Civilian Conservation Corps built the trails, roads, and buildings. This is especially important because the forest houses many heritage resource sites. These are sites of past human activity, such as the archaeological sites, Native American sites, and historic structures. I would have loved to explore these sites further, but most were inaccessible when I went. Next time!
As usual, comments, questions, and feedback are always welcome!