Mt. St. Helen's

Ok, so do you remember where you were when Mt. St. Helen's blew?  Can you believe that was 34 years ago???  So if I admit I remember the news reports, I guess that blows my story about it being my 29th birthday, right?

If you don't remember, let me give you a brief history lesson.  Early in 1980, MSH started making some rumblings - sending smoke in the air and such.  And then in April, scientists started recording earthquakes.  At first a few and then hundreds.  They were kind of getting the inkling that something was going to happen.  They evacuated the area, although one or two stubborn people refused to leave and set up watching camps.  At the beginning of May they started noticing a bulge on the north side of the mountain that steadily grew by 5 feet a day!  Still waiting, people were beginning to become impatient when on the morning of May 18th, within seconds, the whole north side of the mountain began to slide downwards and then, KABOOM!, the whole side of the mountain blew off.  Crazy!

Inside the blast zone everything was leveled and a quickly developing mudslide took out everything in its way including wiping out an entire town.  The landscape around there was changed forever as were the lives of many people.

Now, the whole area is a national monument and a new road winds through the area once devastated by ash and rock.  There are several visitor centers along the road which give a great history of the explosion and offer great views of the area.  When we woke up Sunday to cloudy skies and I thought, "Oh no, how are we going to see the mountain?"  But the camera in the first visitor's center off the highway assured us that the mountain was in clear view because it was above the clouds!

This is the view from the Hoffstadt Creek visitor center.  The wide flat plain is the path of the mud slide.  MSH is in the far background.

If you ever wanted to know how much a tree grows in 34 years, just look at all the even height trees.

From one scenic overview.

This one shows MSH on the right and Mt. Rainier peeking up over the left.  MSH is about 8,000 feet while Rainier is about 14,000.

E and L basking in the sunshine

 Inside the blast zone, there is still scrub and few trees.  If you look closely, you'll see giant "toothpicks" - the remaining trees that were felled by the blast.

The mountain!  That's what you would call a blasted off side.

There was a trail that ran from the final observatory to a scenic parking lot so the kids and I hiked it while Stevie drove the car down.  This trail looked kind of benign at the beginning, but it actually was a bit treacherous.  The ground is scree - so you're basically walking on loose gravel.  The tricky part was that it was a steep drop off just on the side of the trail!  Good job I have fearless kids!

Looking back at MSH from the trail.

This was one of the splintered tree stumps left behind.  You can get an idea of how big the tree was from the size of my foot.

The kids walking on the trail through a graveyard of sheared tree stumps.

Driving back, we stopped for lunch and had an awesome lunch basking in the sunshine eating elk and bison burgers while overlooking the volcano.  Not a bad way to celebrate my birthday.  Not bad at all!