7-4-05 This is me at Johnston's Ridge, Mt St Helens. My first day home after being in North Carolina for 2 weeks and Chuck took me to my favorite place!! It was a beautiful morning, we got up early and had the place pretty much to ourselves. It was the first time I'd been up to Johnston's Ridge since it had been reopened & I was not disapointed at all. The new growth is just incredible and my pictures will not do it justicel!! Steam vents had opened up on 4 places around the new dome before we went back down to watch the elk. I knew some crumbling and growth were taking place & that just left me in awe as the whole growth of a mountian process was going on before my eyes. From where we ended up to watch the elk in a valley below we could see a much larger plume of smoke coming up from the mountian. We learned later that a large piece of the new dome had fallen....it's been cloudy since we were up there but I'm now anxious to see what it looks like.......it just keeps on crumbling and filling up the crater!