This mountain was over 1,000 feet taller before erupting in May of 1980, causing that big hole in the middle of her. Now this wasn't a fire eruption, although it blasted the top of the mountain off, causing lahars to slide all around her into many rivers and over many bridges.
I asked a ranger inside the park if there was a sulfur level for the day since she was smoking. 
He told me that wasn't smoke, but ash and dust due to falling rocks because it is a windy day! I saw the smoke and thought immediately of being in Hawaii driving up to the smoking volcano Kilauea, but this was in no way the same.
The decent at first was a narrow trail on a steep ledge cliff. I must say its a pretty cool way to start and end a trip. At first, we were planning on going to Harry's Ridge, which beholds many scenic views of the mountain. We decided at the last minute to head towards the mountain rather than away from it. So we headed toward the Loowit Trail.
This trail had a few shaded spots to walk through containing little snakes, small bits of water and the fattest squirrels I've ever seen in my life. The most amazing creature I saw was a flying grasshopper whom had yellow/green wings that clicked as they flied around.
The trail led us towards Spirit Lake.
Where we attempted to approach to have lunch at, but all the dead trees all around and in the water proved themselves great obstacles to get around. We found a big dead tree and ate in the shaded woods.
We saw tons of lupens on our journey.
And my favorite: paintbrushes!
A lagoon of sorts:
I was pretty convinced that it might've been quicksand around it so there was no swimming there today.
And we stopped to take a break near the largest of three creeks
The water was clear and cold and felt so good to dip my feet into. We made sure to stop again on our way back. While sitting at this rock edge we met a lady on her way back and asked where she was coming from on the mountain. She pointed out a waterfall that likes like 2 white dots from where we were standing.
So we started heading in that direction to see how far off it was. This part of the walk was super beautiful. We were able to see up and into one of the chasms. And we started to see the water moving at the waterfall as we got closer and closer.
The last 1/4 mile towards Loowit Falls were the toughest for me. It was an uphill hike and I'm pretty sure it was way more than 1/4 mile. It did make for a great viewpoint though.
Getting so close to the mountain made it look like a few different mountains, not just one that was sunken in. We decided to head back, knowing we went further than our original 8 mile round trip hike. We took a little shortcut of a more direct path back to Johnson's Ridge.
Turns out we hiked over 15 miles! I scurried up the last part to get to the gallon jug of water in my car.
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