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| 2005.08.26 - A St Helens Sunrise | ||
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I actually had a day off. And... it was supposed to be nice in
Toutle for the early morning hours. The stage was set... I got up at 1:45 AM, did a quick peek at the CVO Mt St Helens Volcano Cam, and then loaded up my camera gear, and took a trek to The Mountain. There was a glowing 'spot', which at the very least meant it was clear, but at best it would mean that maybe I could get a picture of the 'glow'... I've done this run a lot, actually... sunrises at the Mountain are a recurring thing... I stopped at my secret food mart, and got the infamous "Ugly Dogs"... |
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... Deep fried morsels of goodness! Eggs, onions,
potato, sausage, and cheese... yes, they are AWESOME!
They're at a gas station between Redmond and Mt St Helens...
other than that, you're on your own. :-) I usually stop at the Coldwater Lake Observatory... but this time, I went up to Johnston's Ridge, to see if I could get a better view of the Crater. When I got to the parking lot, I got to park in the "premium" spot... There was no one there at all. |
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It is a short walk from the parking lot to the observatory's viewing
area... it was very interesting to see everything bathed in only the dim
light of the moon. The lights in the observatory istelf were
turned off, but there were lights coming from the displays... I did find it curious that they had left the monitors in the Observatory turned on... you'd think they'd have turned them off to save energy... I quickly set up, and waited for the sunrise... while I did, I grabbed some shots of the moon... |
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It was completely silent. I heard a bird fly by, and it
was almost loud in comparison... its feathers rustled when
it flapped its wings... you could hear elk down in the
valley... it was pretty awesome.
It wasn't long, and the colors of sunrise began to appear. With the first picture I took of the Mountain with a long exposure, I knew I was going to capture pictures of the Glowing... |
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I couldn't see it in the camera when I was setting it up, but once I set
the shutter to stay open for 30 seconds or so, I could see the faint
glow of red from the New Dome...
Encouraged, I put my trusty 500mm telephoto back on, and was amazed! It was hard to aim, though, so I have a lot of pictures of just dirt, or side of the mountain... but once I got it... wow. |
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| it slowly got brighter and brighter, and more details of the crater could be seen... |
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Mt Adams looked awesome through the glow in the light haze. When the first rays of the sun struck the Mountain... everything took on a whole new glow... |
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It seemed to just keep getting better and better... |
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It was difficult, but I had things to do, so I retreated from my view, and after a few looks back, I left Johnston's Ridge, and head out of the Volcanic Monument. | |
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No matter how many times I visit the Mountain, I'm amazed at the recovery
nature has made in the Blast Zone... its quite spectacular. I stopped by Coldwater Lake, which is on the way out, and ran across a bull elk. |
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Cold Water Lake itself was amazing... it had a layer of mist
over the top of it, which would fluffle about in the wind...
(I couldn't thing of a word for it)) | |
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