Ring of Fire

From Rainier we drove south to Mt St Helens. For those of you with short memories this volcano blew catastrophically in 1980 and covered the area with ash and lahars (hot mud slides). Although from the side we were on you couldn't go up the remaining mountain, we got some great views of the missing chunk and the surface of the lake below is still covered in dead tree trunks.

As I refused to pay the outrageous Washington petrol prices were running on fumes, having already put in the emergency tank, so we freewheeled down to Cougar and lucked out by finding the cheapest petrol for weeks. We then felt confident to tackle the small drive up to Ape Cave, which is actually a lava tube and has nothing to do with monkeys (other than it was the name of the boys club that found them). We've seen lava tunnels in several places around the world but nothing quite like this; 1.5 miles completely underground and in pitch blackness. There was no path or lighting and in several places the roof had caved in, but it was a fun scramble and quite a relief when you saw daylight at the other end. We camped up in a lovely camp site and watched a colourful sunset over the lake.

The next day we drove over The Bridge Of The Gods and camped next to the river (and the brewery). We even tackled our massive pile of laundry, although technically we spent the afternoon in the pub next door. The lovely little camp site in the middle of town wasn't quite as enjoyable as we had hoped due to the huge freight trains that ran alongside all night.Read more