Silver Lake Near Mount St. Helens, WA

Site #7 at Silver Cove RV Resort near Mount St. Helens, WA

Memorial Day weekend traditionally kicks off the summer camping season.  We hadn't made plans to go camping this weekend because we just got home from our big 6-week trip a week ago.  Besides that, the forecast was for more rain.  But today we decided that we wanted to camp for a couple of days, so we headed for someplace not too far from home, Mt. St. Helens.  We were able to get a reservation at Silver Cove RV Resort near Castle Rock, WA.  This park is near the Silver Lake Visitor's Center, the first Mount St. Helen's visitor center that you come to on Highway 504 off of I-5.  This was the first visitor center built after the mountain erupted on May 18, 1980. 

This visitor center is now owned and run by Washington State Parks and our national park pass did not work here.  The cost is reasonable, $3 per adult, but we have been here several times in the past, so we didn't pay to go inside.  We stopped here on our way to the RV park to see if we needed a parking pass, but we didn't.  It was late afternoon before we came back to take a walk, and the visitor's center was closed by then.  We were still able to walk on the easy, 1-mile wetlands and boardwalk path near the visitor's center.  The water here is filled with fronds and lily pads.

                          

Click on this picture of Silver Lake to enlarge it. 

You can just barely see Silver Cove RV Resort in the background.

               Pretty flowers along the walk.