Awesome Is An Understatement
At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake shook Mount St. Helen's, triggering a massive explosion. The release of gases trapped inside the volcano sent 1,300 vertical feet of mountaintop rocketing upward and outward to the north. Super-heated ash roared 60,000 feet into the cloudless blue sky. The cataclysmic blast--- carrying winds that reached 670 miles per hour and temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit flattened 230 square miles of forest. Elk, deer and other wildlife were obliterated. Fifty-seven People were killed including USGS scientist David Johnston, namesake of the Johnston Ridge Observatory, and pictured above. The largest landslide in recorded history swept through the Toutle River Valley, (where we are now camped), choking pristine rivers and lakes with mud, ash and shattered timber, eradicating trout and salmon.
After the eruption, only a moonscape remained.
It is somewhat ironic that almost to the day, 29 years previous on May 18, 1980 that I am visiting an area and reflecting on what happened that day and yet at my young age at that time, and busy life, I hardly gave it a passing thought. I remember its day in history of course. News coverage tends to embed in ones mind events such as Mount St. Helen's blowing her top, but Oh, how easy it was to not give it a second thought. That all changes for me following the visit today, and the mental picture I now have of what happened on May 18, 1980. I can't get out of my head the image as seen above of David Johnston sitting and watching the escape of steam just before she blew, and tethered only to the outside world with a two way radio to communicate his observations to the home USGS office in Vancouver, Washington.
The following picture is what Johnston Ridge looks like today. Somewhere under all the re birth of current beauty lies the remains of David Johnston and his humble observatory (never found). His last radio transmission was: "Vancouver---Vancouver, this is it!"
On our return back down Highway 504 from visiting the mountain and getting as close as the road would allow us, we stopped at the Eco Park Resort and not only enjoyed some good ol' ranch house cooking but had a great conversation with Mark Smith the owner/operator.
We had the place to ourselves, save for the "cowboy" who waited on us and Mark the owner until Jim and Robin (pictured below) from Castle Rock, Washington walked in. They seemed to know there way around from the conversation they were having with Mark and when given the chance I asked them if they were in the area when the mountain blew? Jim began to recount the day it happened and the impact it had on his life and from time to time Robin would chime in with her recollections. There would not have been enough time in the day to have witnessed all the stories they could have told but the few they did share will have a lasting impact with me.
Jim told of how on the day she blew he and some of his family were to join friends already up the valley camping near the mountain. His job of loading shipping containers on freighters in Astoria, Washington had kept him several hours longer on his shift than usual and upon arriving back in Castle Rock with his family members ready to go camping, he suggested that they should enjoy breakfast at home while he caught a couple hours of sleep and they would then depart. The rest is history. He was awaken by the blast. Among the 57 lives lost that day were several of his friends. He talked about the many trips in ensuing days to try and help locate the missing, and witnessing first hand the destruction. Robin told of the helplessness that people felt and the sadness at seeing what once was the beauty of tree's, lakes, rivers, and animal life, vanish. The torrents of mud, twisted trees, and huge boulders blocking river ways were more than some in the area could handle and many of there friends who survived the day ultimately could not handle the loss of beauty and reluctant to wait and see what mother nature would have in store, moved on. Some of their friends who escaped from near the "blast zone" but were caught in the ensuing ash fallout lived only in to their 50's before loosing their life to serious lung problems.
What brought Jim and Robin to the mountain this day was a drive in their open air jeep to reflect on the past but more so to feast there eye's on what "mother nature" is doing to recover from the destruction. There eyes see it perhaps a little different than we do but they too are in awe of the beauty that has returned.
Kathleen and I find the North West of our country (Washington and Oregon) to be breathtakingly beautiful at most every turn and at the moment are completely captivated by the shear beauty of the Mount St. Helen's re-birth. I am including a slide show of the pictures that represent what our eyes saw on this afternoon's adventure. Click on slide show below to enjoy. We will be returning to the mountain again and again while in the area.
