Discoveries...America National Parks: Mount Rainier & Mount St. Helens

This edition from Jim and Kelly Watt's excellent high-definition Discoveries…America National Parks series focuses on a pair of Northwest volcanoes 50 miles apart: Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. Although the latter is famous for a 1980 eruption that caused ecological devastation and loss of life (as well as the disappearance of the north side of the mountain), Mount Rainier is potentially the more dangerous of the two. Rainier is not an explosive volcano like St. Helens, but an inevitable release of molten rock will one day melt an enormous amount of snow and ice on top of the mountain, leading to huge mudflows that will quickly travel vast distances. Setting that grim thought aside, Rainier is for now a beautiful site that provides an almost surreal backdrop to Seattle, a favorite image for photographers and artists. The fifth oldest national park in the U.S., Rainier offers an inexhaustible number of activities in summer or winter, including hikes through meadows full of late-summer wildflowers. Viewers will also see Rainier's famous Paradise Inn, built from timber culled from a forest fire in 1916 and visited over the years by presidents and celebrities. The second half of the program focuses almost entirely on St. Helens' eruption and its aftermath. As explained by a park ranger, the story of this volcano keeps changing, and scientists continue to learn from the way species are returning, forests are rebuilding, and landslide deposits are altering the landscape. Sure to appeal to armchair travelers, this is highly recommended. Aud: P. (T. Keogh)