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Mount St. Helens (1 Viewer)

Big mistake is that the state government opened up almost everything 5 days before the big eruption

 
I allegedly have/had ash from this.

My grandparents allegedly had relatives from out there....it's also possible my grandfather was full of it

 
Knew a guy who was with his GF on a back-country camping trip about 100 miles East of the explosion which they clearly heard and then saw a gigantic mushroom cloud.

In 80 their were no cell phones, no Internet, so they were completely blind to what happened.  They figured that the bomb was dropped and it was the end of the world so... you can figure out what they did for the next few days till they stumbled back to town.

Its not difficult to find ash to this day.  In the Portland area gutters were filled with it and it was still a problem in the mid 90s where half the gutters had a thick layer of ash in them.  Portland cement has lots of ash from past eruptions.  The road leading up to Rainier was stacked 30 to 40 feet high with it in the mid 80s.  

I've been many times to St. Helens both sides.  Must-see if you get the chance.  Eerie-awesome-place. 

 
I used to camp up there a lot. It's 45-50 minute drive from my house. Lived in Portland most of my life.

When I was 12 that thing blew up. Literally. We all watched it. Seeing an eruption it's like watching a car crash in slow motion. It takes a while for that plume to go 15 miles up into the air. It wasn't just one eruption, there were multiple days, months and years where she blew up in a series of smaller burps.

There are places up there right now today that look like the surface of the moon. Nothing grows and it's covered with feet of ash, the ground is burnt closed. Little pockets of death litters the forest which is now undisturbed for 40 years, the lifetime to maturity of a Douglas fir or western hemlock tree that is now 2 ft across the base and 80-100 ft tall.

The area has lava tube caves you can explore that go deep into the earth. One of them you have to crawl through a hole in the ground to get into, it's filled with stalactites and stalagmites. The top of the mountain is gone. It used to be rounded and people called it the snow cone mountain. 

Day turned to night, ash rained from the sky and the eruptions created their own weather and some lightning occasionally. It was a real mess.

 
My dad worked for one of the timber companies that logged the area. We were able to go "behind the lines" sometime around 1981 when the logging roads were first restored. It was eerie. Not another human being (or any other living creature) in sight. Just miles and miles of grey, for as far as the eye could see. We saw several vehicles which had been burned out and engulfed by the ash.

 
tommyboy said:
The top of the mountain is gone.
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One of the things that's a great visual reminder of how powerful this blast was is to see the mountain today versus prior to the eruption. 1/3 to 1/2 of the top half of the mountain was blown sky high, leaving behind a mile-wide crater and 3/4 of a cubic mile of debris.

I believe it was an earthquake that got the ball rolling as opposed to volcanic activity alone.

 
Stompin' Tom Connors said:
One of the things that's a great visual reminder of how powerful this blast was is to see the mountain today versus prior to the eruption. 1/3 to 1/2 of the top half of the mountain was blown sky high, leaving behind a mile-wide crater and 3/4 of a cubic mile of debris.

I believe it was an earthquake that got the ball rolling as opposed to volcanic activity alone.
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Relevant XKCD

 
my brother just posted a picture of us camping on Spirit Lake on the mountain- had to be a few years before it erupted.

we went two or three years in a row- great memories of that area. picked wild strawberries near the summit, wild blueberries around the base. spirit lake had been created, IIRC, by a previous eruption or landslide that dammed off one end of a valley instantaneously- submerging full grown trees below the surface that were still visible (and creepy af). we had to row across the lake to get the camp spot and it freaked the hell out of me as a little kid. still irrationally terrified of submerged objects.

 
I lived in Olympia at the time, about 100 miles north of St. Helens.

I remember that day vividly.  The explosion scared the hell out of me (I was 13).   I still have some jars of ash stored away somewhere.

My dad chartered a small plane to fly over the mountain later that year---that was awesome.

 
El Floppo said:
my brother just posted a picture of us camping on Spirit Lake on the mountain- had to be a few years before it erupted.

we went two or three years in a row- great memories of that area. picked wild strawberries near the summit, wild blueberries around the base. spirit lake had been created, IIRC, by a previous eruption or landslide that dammed off one end of a valley instantaneously- submerging full grown trees below the surface that were still visible (and creepy af). we had to row across the lake to get the camp spot and it freaked the hell out of me as a little kid. still irrationally terrified of submerged objects.
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added the picture.

 
we got dusted here in western montana. a couple of millimeters total.

the whole town shut down for fear of inhaling the ash and they started selling those stupid masks for one dollar each.  a friend of mine and i went out on our bike on a mini 'looting spree'.

i rained within 2 days and all went back to normal.  good times.

 
I worked there as a Forest Service Interp Ranger for two summers in 94 and 95. Such a magical place. Only 14-15 years after it erupted, so it still felt so raw. Went back a few years ago and found myself "disappointed" that the landscape had turned so green. Still lots of brown, but so much green. The ecologist in me loves this, the loss-for-the-past in me hates it.

 
Have hiked to the top twice and cross country skied on the south side quite a bit. Crazy place and very cool to see.

Haven't been in past few years but I could tell the dome was building up between the 1st and 2nd hikes to the top...it's nuts they let you basically hike right up to the edge.

 
We visited the MSH visitor's center park around 2000.  It's about 30 miles away from the mountain but on clear days the views are unbelievable. They show a really cool movie with all the events leading up to the big blow and then the screen rises up, the curtains open and there's the actual mountain right in front of you!

We did some great hikes on the pristine side of the mountain including the Ape Caves which are lava tubes that weave underground. You go down a ladder in a maw in the earth armed with an old lantern and then walk through these tunnels. Never forget it.

 
Lived in Spokane at the time.  Thought it was rain clouds approaching then I was informed.  Ash everywhere.  Spokane shut down for a week.  No travel advised.  Of course I didn't listen & drove everywhere.  Year later my car engine went bust.  Mechanic said it was the ash as some so fine it was like razors.  I was stupid.

 
Joe Mammy said:
We visited the MSH visitor's center park around 2000.  It's about 30 miles away from the mountain but on clear days the views are unbelievable. They show a really cool movie with all the events leading up to the big blow and then the screen rises up, the curtains open and there's the actual mountain right in front of you!

We did some great hikes on the pristine side of the mountain including the Ape Caves which are lava tubes that weave underground. You go down a ladder in a maw in the earth armed with an old lantern and then walk through these tunnels. Never forget it.
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Ape Caves is the side of the mountain where I worked. I led tours down there with the old lanterns. Also worked up at Windy Ridge. That was a fun road to drive a few times a week.

 
ex-ghost said:
Ape Caves is the side of the mountain where I worked. I led tours down there with the old lanterns. Also worked up at Windy Ridge. That was a fun road to drive a few times a week.
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I can't remember the name of the motel we stayed at but I'm pretty sure it was in Longview. It was like a salmon fisherman mom and pop. The river was across the street. There were paper towel rolls outside the front door mounted on the wall. I guess for fish cleaning? We laugh about that place now, the carpet was disgusting and it was a definite budget stop.

However, we did go to this little restaurant down the road that advertised "homemade pies". We arrived at like 6:00 and were the first ones in. They had huge pies in a display case. We ate fresh fish and had huge pieces of pie. By the time we left the pies were sold out! There was a steady stream of locals stopping in just for a pie to go. Fun trip, we lived in the San Juans (Friday Harbor) at the time and had taken the earliest ferry and then drove down and spent a few days crawling all over that mountain.

 
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