[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Happy Mt. St Helens day! (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 5/18/2025 12:25:00 PM EDT
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A friend and I were there that crazy morning, fly-fishing and camping in the Randle area about 50 miles away as the crow flies. Had the mountain blown out a different direction no idea if I would be typing this. We were 17 didn't hear a thing, but we saw a lot and I will never forget it. |
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I was stationed at Ft. Lewis (2nd Ranger Battalion) when it happened. We'd been watching the local news and updates and articles of people in the area being evacuated and yet some wouldn't leave. On that day, we felt the building shake once and moments later, someone came running through the barracks yelling that St. Helens had just erupted. Even from about 150 miles away we could see the plume of ash thousands of feet in the sky. By the next day it looked like Gray Army Airfield was empty as all the helicopters were sent to search for survivors. Ft Lewis had a light dusting of ash and all of the tv stations showed videos of the devastation. Months later, I was at Yakima Firing Center and the ash was still about six to eight inches deep. I collected some ash in an empty Coke bottle but have misplaced it over the years since. |
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Walked out back to watch it as it was occurring, had seen several prior smaller eruptions in the past months and had collected ash from one of those. May 18 though was a completely different deal, just a gigantic mushroom cloud. My dad had been working one of the roadblocks until about midnight the night before. Needless to say, the whole area was fucked up for years after the eruption, the Columbia River was jammed full of logs, huge floating pumice rocks, and ash. I literally saw houses floating down the river, they had been washed away from along the smaller rivers that fed into the Columbia. Know of one or two people who went out and towed in houses, and fixed them up. With all the logs in the river, firewood was super easy to get. And a number of houses were made with lumber made on small sawmills from the logs. We got lucky with the ash, as the wind was blowing the other direction so it mostly went East. I got a front seat view the next day of the forward edge of the debris going by headed downstream, talk about a mess. Just a flood of gray mud and logs overwhelming the normal river. |
Visited the area 11 years after, in 1991. Still a moonscape. The trees all aligned with the blast direction blows the mind.  DSC_0031-St Helens Damage by FredMan, on Flickr DSC_0029-St Helens Damage by FredMan, on Flickr DSC_0032-St Helens Damage by FredMan, on FlickrCheck out this road they built on ash. No wonder it failed.  DSC_0034-Road Damage by FredMan, on Flickr
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It happened almost 15 years before I was born I got the opportunity to hike around the national park there when I was in Washington for work in 2017. Absolutely amazing views and awesome hiking. Hiked out to a point on Johnston’s ridge 4.5 miles from the visitor center and got a straight on view. Attached File A lake on the way to Johnston’s ridge still full of tree trunks that were blown in. Attached File Some of the flowers that have grown back, around a blown over tree. Attached File One of the trails on the way to Johnston’s ridge, maybe 1.5’ wide Attached File Also found where the Grinch lives Attached File |
| The whole nation turned volcano crazy that day. KFC had a chicken bucket deal that you would get a small container of ash if you upgraded. I still have that container in storage. I’m sure it didn’t sell well in the PNW but the rest of the nation wanted ash from the mountain. |
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Quoted: Go climb that thang. It’s an amazing experience. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/55357/IMG_7149-3543337.jpg Yes it is. I still need to get up that other mountain in your pic though. I wish I'd been around to climb it before it blew. It must have been a sweet climb. |
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I remember when it happened. My GF at the time, now my wife, grew up in Portland. My MIL lived there at the time and she got ashfall on her property. I've been to the visitor's center. It was an impressive event. I bought this soon after it was published, it still sits on my library shelf. https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1250/report.pdf |
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Quoted: The whole nation turned volcano crazy that day. KFC had a chicken bucket deal that you would get a small container of ash if you upgraded. I still have that container in storage. I’m sure it didn’t sell well in the PNW but the rest of the nation wanted ash from the mountain. I have a film container of ash I collected in the park. I also have a Christmas tree ornament that was made by a local artisan who made them from melting the ash. |
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Quoted: The whole nation turned volcano crazy that day. KFC had a chicken bucket deal that you would get a small container of ash if you upgraded. I still have that container in storage. I’m sure it didn’t sell well in the PNW but the rest of the nation wanted ash from the mountain. Heh yeah, we had truckloads of the stuff. Basically shoveled it from the sidewalks and rooftops into the wheelbarrow, then to be mixed in the garden beds. |
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Quoted: It happened almost 15 years before I was born I got the opportunity to hike around the national park there when I was in Washington for work in 2017. Absolutely amazing views and awesome hiking. Hiked out to a point on Johnston’s ridge 4.5 miles from the visitor center and got a straight on view. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/430237/IMG_4001_jpeg-3543402.JPG A lake on the way to Johnston’s ridge still full of tree trunks that were blown in. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/430237/IMG_4005_jpeg-3543403.JPG Some of the flowers that have grown back, around a blown over tree. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/430237/IMG_3980_jpeg-3543405.JPG One of the trails on the way to Johnston’s ridge, maybe 1.5’ wide https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/430237/IMG_3982_jpeg-3543406.JPG Also found where the Grinch lives https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/430237/IMG_4008_jpeg-3543408.JPG This is the log jam as of a couple years ago. That's looking south from the Mt Margaret area.  Looking up from the pumice plain. Truman trail iirc.  Loowit falls 
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 A look back at the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption |
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Quoted: I had a relative who lived in an area that got ash fall. He mailed us a small jar of ash! It was still in a kitchen cabinet when I moved to Chicago in 1996. I was a kid in the Chicago suburbs at the time and definitely remember the ash in the grass. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to see and the mower kicked up a lot of dust from it. |
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Quoted: Go climb that thang. It’s an amazing experience. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/55357/IMG_7149-3543337.jpg That is a great image! |
From 2012. Couple years ago.  Our favorite camping spot is along one of the Lahars from the eruption. You can see bridge supports where a bridge was washed away.  A few years ago near another camping spot further down the same river we stumbled upon this old bridge deck from a different bridge buried in the dirt, washed a half mile from where it once stood.  |
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I was 5 years old and playing in the lake at my grandparents' house, saw the mushroom cloud coming up and Grandma came out and had me come inside. I remember being scared that the lava was going to kill us all for a couple years lol, my wife remembers worrying about the same thing, and of course we all played hot lava, where if you touched the ground, you were dead. We lived in Thurston County about 2 hours away from the mountain, later my gramps and I hunted on that mountain and killed many deer and birds, kind of a spooky place after the eruption though. |
[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Happy Mt. St Helens day! (Page 1 of 2)
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