Mount St.Helens National Volcanic Monument

I can still vividly remember the morning of May 18, 1980, when after several months of rumbling and threatening, Mount St. Helen's blew it's top, sending over a thousand feet of its peak and much of the north face of the mountain into the air in an explosion of unimaginable force. Everything in it's path was destroyed by the combination of heat and winds.

Mount St. Helens before eruption






Mount St. Helens after eruption






Quick summary of what happened that day taken from my National Park guide.

Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of Mount St. Helens collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. In a few moments this slab of rock and ice slammed into Spirit Lake, crossed a ridge 1,300 feet high, and roared 14 miles down the Toutle River. The avalanche rapidly released pressurized gases within the volcano. A tremendous lateral explosion ripped through the avalanche and developed into a turbulent, stone-filled wind that swept over ridges and toppled trees. Nearly 150 square miles of forest were blown over or left dead and standing. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. Wet, cement-like slurries of rock and mud scoured all sides of the volcano. Searing flows of pumice poured from the crater. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments. A vast, gray landscape lay where once the forested slopes of Mount St. Helens grew. In 1982 the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.


























The trees look like tooth picks strewn across the surrounding areas.











Here you can see the effects of the pyroplastic flow.





Johnston Ridge Observatory...more clouds!
























The destruction is still clearly evident, but signs of life are rapidly reappearing in the fertile land that the volcano left behind.











I think to truly see what immense power must have been unleashed that morning, you have to see Mount St. Helens in person.

Location:Johnston Ridge Observatory