CAROL WRITES: After leaving the bustling, hectic scene of Portland city life, we headed up into Washington State to rural and green Silver Lake Campground.
Here we enjoyed a quiet, convenient base camp from which to explore Mount St. Helens, a notoriously active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range that last erupted in 1980.
In order to appreciate the enormity of the destruction at Mount St. Helens, one need only look at photographs that recollected what a pristine and popular tourist destination this land used to be. Camping and hiking were exceptional at Spirit Lake at the base of what was then a perfectly proportioned active volcano in the Cascade portion of the Ring of Fire.
 |
| Internet photo of Mount St. Helens before eruption in 1980 |
Then, after weeks of rumbling, on the morning of May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m., a 5.2 magnitude earthquake blew away 1300 feet of mountain off the north-facing side. This lateral blast created the largest landslide in recorded history and forever rearranged the landscape for many miles in the distance.
In an instant all the trees within 6 miles of the summit were flattened to the earth by a massive pyroclastic blast to the north.
During our family year on the road 29 years ago, we visited Mount St. Helens. At that 1989 visit we attempted to do a little hiking but were turned back by what we remember as very rugged trail conditions marked by fallen trees and steep drop-offs.
Fast forward almost 30 years, and we wondered if the landscape would be all that different…
Oh my goodness, things had definitely changed! We were astounded by the complexity of the natural recovery that had taken place. From the Johnston Ridge lookout it took some searching to spot any fallen trees,
as many of them had eroded and decayed over the ensuing three decades.
For a close-up look at the blast zone, we headed over to the hummocks area that had been created by giant chunks of Mount St. Helens that were deposited by the landslide. On the Hummocks Trail we discovered a hard-packed surface with a tiny dusting of gray volcanic ash on top. Remarkably, almost 40-year-old vegetation of trees and flowers had repopulated the once-deserted landscape.
At the Johnston Ridge Observatory we watched a short film that gave an excellent account of the events leading up to and following the eruption. In a brilliant move of stagecraft, at the conclusion of the movie the curtains parted in the dark auditorium and we were awed by a perfectly framed view of the leading lady herself—Mount St. Helens!
Outside, along with several dozen other visitors, we had our turn at getting our vanity photo at the perfect picture spot.
The short trail out of Johnston Ridge Visitor Center
was through the former blast zone. The land immediately adjacent to the peak retained a spooky moonscape appearance.
It was a bit creepy to observe that the dome was once again bulging within the mountain’s crater.
As lava continues to cook in magma chambers below, Al photographed the mountain sending faint puffs of steam arising from heated waterfalls within giant crevices.
It was obvious even to the casual observer that Mount St. Helens is still very much an active volcano that will erupt again some time in the future.
On a scorching hot day, while I stayed back at camp, Al took a much longer hike along Harry’s Ridge and had great vistas of Mt. Adams
and Mt. Hood.
The trail eventually led to a great view of Spirit Lake, once a popular tourist destination that had become a toxic sludge pond after the eruption. Nearly 40 years later, the lake still had a floating carpet of logs that were washed down into the lake during the explosion.
During this 2018 visit, we found it interesting to observe how the surrounding land around Mount St. Helens has reclaimed itself since our first visit in 1989. Out of the ashes of rearranged landmarks dotted with twisted and shattered stumps of once tall forests,
a new baby forest, along with shrubs and flowers,
has become established. The explosion on that May day in 1980 evaporated entire lakes; yet the scene of today showed that wildlife, along with thriving new blue lakes (like Coldwater Lake), had returned.
Two visits to Mount St. Helens—separated by nearly three decades—produced pronounced contrasts in observations. While our visit in 1989 was a sober lesson about the destructive power of a volcanic eruption, the present-day story of Mount St. Helens has morphed into a message of rebirth and resilience…
No comments:
Post a Comment