http://www.katu.com/outdoors/featured/41066297.html

Anybody else see this article? Is it a posibility? I think it would really be an incredible day to be one of first to toss some bugs around Spirit Lake in what, nearly 30 years!

That would be awesome. I had some great days up at Coldwater right when they opened that. I think it was the same way, you had to get one of a limited number of permits. Then Coldwater got "discovered" and busy. I haven't been up there in years.

The really neat thing about Coldwater, and that whole area, was how quickly it came back. First year I fished it I remember there were very few shrubs and bushes and a few birds. The next year there were more and a few little evergreen starts. Saw some deer tracks. Within 5 years there were 10 foot trees and sometimes we saw elk.

Coldwater can still be really, really good -- and good for big fish.
For me, that lake is either red-hot or ice-cold, and that's not even counting the days when the wind blows and my nose is ice-cold.
I would walk a long way in the cold to fish Spirit Lake, and I've pushed for opening the lake to limited access in my column in The Olympian.
Brant is right -- some parts of Mount St. Helens have come back really rapidly.
I recall the day the mountain blew. I was sick with the flu, and I woke up late and turned on the television to see a giant mushroom cloud boiling on the screen.
I thought the Russians had nuked us.