Nature Blows Her Top


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North America » United States » Washington » Mt St Helens
August 13th 2011
Published: May 22nd 2012
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Mount St. HelensMount St. HelensMount St. Helens

My first view of Mount St. Helens. Compared to other volcanoes, the entire top is missing!
Today is another long day of driving.

It’s longer than I originally planned.

I have to get my damaged car fixed soon.

I want to spend time along the Pacific coast in this next stretch of the trip.

Instead, I have to find someplace I’m willing to stay put for a few days.

Given my recent experience, Portland Oregon (see Chilling In Hipsterland) seems like the best choice of a hangout.

I have a single day left to see the Oregon coast which means I need to get near there today.

From Seattle, that is a pretty long drive.





Some things stick out from the long haul south.

Many interstates in this part of the country were built on top of existing roads.

For I 5, that road was US 99.

In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration built bridges all over the west.

In Washington, they all have the form of a metal truss between concrete approaches.

When US 99 was turned into I 5, the builders kept these bridges for one set of lanes, and put the other on a concrete causeway next door.
Planted FirsPlanted FirsPlanted Firs

Planted firs along the road to Mt. Saint Helens. The fuzzy view exists in real life, created by lots of little branches close together.

The result is a boring concrete bridge next to a historic engineering landmark, over and over.





The next notable thing is the train track.

One part of US 99 ran right next to a railroad.

The only place to put the interstate lanes was on the other side of the tracks, so the railroad now runs down the middle of the highway.

When a train is on the tracks, which I saw, this is a pretty surreal sight.


Mount St. Helens



I did find time to see one important thing along the drive, what happens when a mountain is not what it seems.

I went to see Mount St. Helens.





The Cascade Mountain range runs from Canada to northern California.

It was formed by a series of volcanoes.

The volcanoes are caused by the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, which is slowly sinking under the North American continent.

As it sinks, it melts to form magma.

That magma rises to form volcanoes.

The Cascade Range is the United States’ section of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the most geologically active region on earth.
Roadside WildflowersRoadside WildflowersRoadside Wildflowers

Wildflowers along the roadside close to the monument






The plate is still sinking, so the Cascade Range is still active.

These volcanoes are dormant, not dead.

Every major park has signs reminding people of that fact, including at Mount Rainier (see Rainier is Shorthand for “Rains All Year”, Right?), but it was easy to get complacent.

After all, nobody had seen one produce a major eruption since Europeans discovered the area.

Needless to say, that changed dramatically on May 18th, 1980.





Until the beginning of that year, Mount St. Helens was a rather unremarkable volcano.

It was just one of many in the area, overshadowed by more picturesque peaks like Mount Hood.

Tellingly, much of the surrounding land was private.

It was probably best known for the rustic vacation resorts around nearby Sprit Lake.

Geologists did discover that some of the old lava flows around the mountain were much younger than they expected, but they did not realize what that implied for the future.





Early in 1980, the mountain experienced a series of earthquakes.

In a volcano, they are caused by only one thing, the movement of magma.

Scientists set up observation centers on
Mount St. Helens gashMount St. Helens gashMount St. Helens gash

Mount St. Helens showing the north side gash, where the mountain blew after an earthquake.
the mountain.

The earthquakes became more severe and the northern slope began to bulge.

When the cone belched steam in March, the Forest Service ordered an evacuation.

Harry Truman, who had lived on Sprit Lake for over sixty years, became a national celebrity by refusing.

For two month afterward, it appeared he was right as nothing happened.





Finally, the mountain blew its top.

A huge earthquake weakened the north side bulge on the mountain, which then exploded with ash, mud, and hot gas.

Hurricane force winds tore out trees to their roots and sand blasted anything in their way.

Pumice and mud choked local rivers and filled Sprit Lake (and buried Harry Truman).

Soon afterward, the area around the volcano was declared a national monument.

It has been allowed to regenerate naturally, providing a fascinating laboratory for biologists and a compelling sight for visitors.





The first thing people see after pulling off the interstate is a visitor’s center.

It has an exhibit on the volcano and the chaos it caused.

I skipped it because they charge admission.

Thankfully, information on the volcano itself
Broken treesBroken treesBroken trees

Destroyed trees on Coldwater Peak, which the force of the volcano carried from Johnson Ridge
is free.

The most important item is the weather forecast; like Rainier, St. Helens can generate its own clouds which will eliminate the views that make it so compelling.


Spirit Lake Memorial Highway



After the visitor’s center, the highway heads into the mountains.

Once outside the nearest town, things look normal.

If anything, they look too normal with trees everywhere and a road that is remarkably new for the area.

Eventually, the highway reaches an overlook of a long bridge over a ravine.

This overlook has a signboard that explains the scenery.





While the national monument prohibits changes to the landscape, the restrictions do not apply to the private land outside it.

Several paper companies lost a lot of trees when the mountain blew, and they are determined to recoup that loss quickly.

The road looks new because it is, built by Washington State as a replacement for the one buried under mud and ash.

The companies aggressively replanted the forest.

The signboard presents all of this as a good thing, returning the land to a healthy ecosystem as opposed to the long term devastation had nature
Mount St. Helens CalderaMount St. Helens CalderaMount St. Helens Caldera

The Caldera of Mount St. Helens, showing the lava dome
taken its course.





Past the bridge, the road continues up the valley.

Unlike the original road along the river, this one climbs high above it along the valley walls.

The trees on the sides become younger and younger.

This is clearly a planted forest, with all the trees the same species and age.

The firs all had stubby green branches.

From a distance, these combined to produce a fuzzy diffraction effect, like looking at the trees through a bad pair of glasses.





Several overlooks along the way give views of Mount Saint Helens.

The mountain is large and very brown, a big contrast to the surrounding green.

Compared to the pyramid shaped volcanoes from earlier (see The Great Mountain), it is also clearly missing something.

The entire top third of the mountain is just gone.

Slowly it grew closer and closer and the views gradually revealed a big gash on the north side.

This is the area where the mountain blew out during the eruption.





As the road climbed, the overlooks revealed other things.

The most
Ash valleyAsh valleyAsh valley

The ash filled valley from the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens
important is the river valley below the mountain.

A huge plain of what looked like mud ran from the volcano down the valley.

This is the remains of the ash and cinder flow from the eruption.

The overlooks also revealed the scenery around the mountain, a huge view of the surrounding Cascades.

A white peak was just visible to the east, Mount Adams, which I last saw from Mount Rainier (see Welcome to Sunrise).


Johnson Ridge



Eventually, the road split.

The publicly accessible branch quickly dropped down the side of the valley and entered an area with few trees, the national monument.

The trees here are mostly young and scraggly.

The road follows a ravine with practically no trees, and then climbs a ridge that held only grass.

I was surprised to see no fallen trees on this stretch, since they are such a symbol of the volcano’s destruction.

Once at the top of the ridge, a look back gave the reason.

The force of the eruption was so large, the wind carried the trees to the next ridge over and dumped them there.

Many had rotted away,
Tree remainsTree remainsTree remains

This is what happens when trees get sandblasted by a volcano eruption. Calling them stumps feels inadequate
but the slope still had remains.





The road finally ends at Johnson Ridge Observatory, named for David Johnson, a volcanologist who was killed on this spot when the mountain blew.

The observatory has a fantastic view of the mountain and the devastated valley below.

On a clear day, it has one of the few easily accessible views inside the caldera from land.

I arrived just in time to see it, as the mountain top clouded over minutes later.





The observatory is the starting point for a nature trail around part of the ridge.

The trail has a number of displays on the volcano and what happened when it blew.

It turns out that Mount Saint Helens is the most active volcano in the Cascades, erupting every century or so.

When it went off in 1980, it was actually overdue.





Between the ridge and the volcano sits a large valley.

It is covered in tan soil that looked like a desert with no plants at all.

Rivers have carved ravines in the floor of the valley.

As noted above, the soil is really
Johnson Ridge trailJohnson Ridge trailJohnson Ridge trail

Johnson Ridge beyond the nature trail. This hike is over seven miles long!
ash and cinders from the volcano.

The scale is nearly impossible to determine due to the lack of trees and other landmarks.

It appears to be a quick walk from the ridge, but would actually take over a day to reach.

To protect the rare landscape, hikers are prohibited from the area.





Another panel talks about the effect of the blast on the vegetation.

Tree stumps appear along the trail.

They look like no other stumps I have seen, more like piles of splinters stuck upright in the ground.

The force of the blast was stronger than a hurricane.

It was so strong it blew debris right over the ridge into the next valley over.

It also stripped the top soil, which is why recovery has been so slow.





These days, plants on the ridge resemble those in an alpine zone.

The exposed sections are entirely grass and wildflowers, plants that hug the ground for protection against winter wind and ice.

More sheltered areas hold young trees.

They will eventually reestablish the forest.

The occasional lone pine appears here and
MemorialMemorialMemorial

The memorial to those killed in the eruption. David Johnson is in the center left and Harry Truman is on the lower right.
there, looking really out of place in this landscape.





About halfway through the trail, it reaches a memorial to those killed in the eruption.

A simple stone slab, it lists the names in alphabetical order.

There are 57 of them.

Harry Truman and David Johnson appear, of course, along with several lumberjacks who were working just outside the evacuation zone at the time the mountain blew.





The final part of the trail has a great view of the ridge leading east.

It stretches to a pair of mountains with a valley in front of them.

The valley holds the remains of Sprit Lake.

A trail starts from here along the ridge.

It appears in the view for a long distance.

The lack of perspective really shows, in that a hike that looks like a few hours is really over seven miles long.

At the end of the trail, I had a long drive, after dark, into central Oregon.


Additional photos below
Photos: 25, Displayed: 25


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Mt. Adams and lakeMt. Adams and lake
Mt. Adams and lake

On the road to Mt. Saint Helens
Cascades lakeCascades lake
Cascades lake

On the road to Mt. Saint Helens
Replacement bridgeReplacement bridge
Replacement bridge

New bridge and highway to replace the one in the valley buried by Mt. Saint Helens eruption.
Cascade RangeCascade Range
Cascade Range

View from the road to Johnson Ridge
Cascades RangeCascades Range
Cascades Range

View from the road to Johnson Ridge
North Fork Toutle River valleyNorth Fork Toutle River valley
North Fork Toutle River valley

What a huge ash flow does to a river valley
Mount AdamsMount Adams
Mount Adams

Volcano hiding behind other cascade peaks
Castle LakeCastle Lake
Castle Lake

Near Mt. Saint Helens
Wildflowers and shrubsWildflowers and shrubs
Wildflowers and shrubs

Nature slowly rebuilds the forest
Destroyed trees and wildflowersDestroyed trees and wildflowers
Destroyed trees and wildflowers

New growth on Johnson Ridge surrounds trees the eruption destroyed
Johnson Ridge trailJohnson Ridge trail
Johnson Ridge trail

It may appear short, but is actually over seven miles long.


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