Look for the very visible Harmony Viewpoint sign. Well maintained trail. Nice and cool along the first half of the trail (10:30am) which runs along the side of the mountain and in the morning shade. Amazing how much has grown back 35 years after the eruption. The trail ends at the lake. Perfect place for a picnic but you will be in full sun. No shade at the lake. Take plenty of water. I almost had the place to myself. I really enjoyed seeing Spirit Lake up close.

Did a little site-seeing adventure on the Windy Ridge side of the mountain with the niece and nephew. We stopped at all the look-outs and read all the signs. I don't think I had been to this side of the mt for about 20 years, so didn't really remember anything specific. Not very many people on this side, probably due to the longer drive and it was a cloudy day with occasional rain showers. Harmony Falls was our last stop of the day. Hiked down to Spirit Lake. The falls are now a small creek tumbling over a few rocks. Still pretty. The trail ends at the log raft. Really cool! We usually hike from the Cougar side or the Johnston Ridge side and I had no idea there was even a trail that went down to the lake. It started raining on us as soon as we got to the lake, so we took a few pictures and went back to the car. This would be a great hike to do on a sunny day and spend some time at the logs. The magnitude of destruction here is really impressive. We also had foggy views of Loowit Falls that would be great on a clear day. Took us around an hour round-trip with a 10 and 12 year old and some time for pictures at the lake.

Forest Road 99 to Windy Ridge is open & in good condition! This was a nice short hike down to Spirit Lake - great views once you reach the lake & along the trail there are at least 5 different types of wildflowers blooming :) I hiked this trail on the same day as Meta Lake which made a nice pair. I hiked this with a hip injury & was able to do the 700' elevation gain in 1 mile on the way back with no issues/pain, but I took it slowly & took a couple short breaks. It may be a challenging ascent for some people though or for children. ---------- I created an instagram hashtag #hikingwithaninjury which others are welcome to use to share easy but scenic hikes that can be done when injured :)

An excellent, short day-hike - roundtrip took us 1.5 hours (including a decent amount of time near Spirit Lake). Trail was in good shape - water run-off had carved through the middle of it in parts, and there were some rocks to navigate close to the lake, but overall it's easy to traverse. Bugs weren't bad (some buzzing around during the first half of the hike). Trail starts off going downhill and levels off close to the lake. Views were great (even if the clouds were blocking some of St. Helens), and we only came across maybe 10 other people the entire time (no one was down at the bottom). The climb back up makes you sweat, but considering it is relatively short, it's not bad at all.