Mt. St. Helens

Pretty amazing stuff. Stay tuned for Crater Lake.

Some of the trees in the forests that were demolished.

This is the Coldwater Lake. It was formed when water backed up behind a natural dam created by the massive landslide during the 1980 eruption.

Mt. St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980 leveled 230-square miles of forest in less than 10 minutes. The mountain lost 1300 feet of height and 0.67 cubic miles of total volume. The eruption began with a massive landslide that buried 14 miles of river valley to an average depth of 150 feet. The landslide released trapped magma and gas, producing a sideways explosion of hot rock and ash killing trees up to 17 miles north of the volcano. Cement-like slurries of glacial melt water and boulders called lahars scoured and buried streams draining the volcano. A vertical ash eruption rose to a height of 15-miles above the crater and continued for 9-hours. Ash drifted to the northeast. Fiery avalanches of pumice and hot gasses called pyroclastic flows flowed into the valley north of the crater.

A view of Mt. St. Helens.

Tommy would like to have that little car but I don't think he could tow it.

Tommy is reading the history of this bridge. I can't remember what it was but it was pretty amazing. It is a long bridge and a bunch of tons of steel. They were having trouble getting it together so when they were building, they built on both ends and put it together in the middle.

Here's another helicopter. It didn't seemed that it was there to take people up or if it was there for the Johnston Ridge Observatory's personal use.

We stopped at this place where they would take you to view Mt. St. Helens on a Helicopter. We might of made that trip but we'd have to wait so we went on. We later talked to some people that had been waiting and they really loved it. They said they would do it again.

This is the information on the A-Frame house.

I think there was a story about this sculpture. I think it was sculptured with volcanic mud.

Another view.

This is the A-Frame house that never got lived in and was nothing left of it but the roof.

Another view of the truck.

This is the man that gave Tommy the information on the truck. He was from this area. He also told us about an A Frame house that was 3 days from getting finished building. The first floor was buried by mud flow from the eruption and a huge tree was stuck through it.

Oops, I entered the same picture here, I meant to enter another picture. I tried to delete it but I don't know if it can be done after you enter it.

On our way Tommy saw this wreck. At the time he thought it was a truck that had rolled over or something and there were two couples there, so we turned around and went back. This truck is one of 17 logging trucks that were pushed down the river by the volcanic eruption on May 18, 1980 . I don't know if people that go down the road to Mt. St. Helens even notices the truck and the history behind it.

We are headed to Mt. St. Helens. Three years ago we had traveled 13 north western and western coast states and did visit Mt. Rainier. We were on our way to Mt. St. Helens' and were at the Johnston Ridge Observatory and couldn't see anything because of the weather. They told us that what we saw from there was what we were going to see so we didn't get a chance to see Mt. St. Helens so we decided to give it another shot.