Driving Distance: 182.9 miles Time: 6 hours riding time (est.)

Pleasant rural ride through farmland and into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. If you like the twisties, this ride is for you. Well maintained blacktop forest service roads wind, turn, twist along the way to the spectacular Windy Ridge Viewpoint on the Eastern side of the Volcano. Windy Ridge is one of the best places to get an overview of the area devastated by the 1980 eruption. The landscape is littered with sand and gray rocks from that event. Deposits of the debris avalanche are visible to the west. These include the lower parts of The Spillover, where the debris avalanche traveled up over Johnston Ridge and into the South Coldwater area. The blast stripped most of the vegetation and some soil from many of the older bedrock surfaces, revealing to geologists and visitors previously hidden chapters in the geologic history of the area. Rockfalls from the crater walls stir up ash clouds that curl over the edges of the crater rim, especially in late summer. A faint bluish-white volcanic gas plume is often visible rising from the Lava Dome, and sometimes fumaroles or clusters of fumaroles can be seen there.