44 Years Ago

[General Woundwort]

44 years ago on May 18, 1980, the continental United States was reminded that there are active and dangerously explosive volcanoes within its borders. Mt. St. Helens, the most active volcano in the continental USA and the scene of several phreatic (steam) explosions since March of 1980, produced a massive directed blast that took the lives of 57 persons and forever changed the science of vulcanology. If the eruption had waited just two hours - 10:30 AM Pacific instead of 8:32 - there would have been upwards of 100 more victims. One of the twists of fate that happened that unforgettable day was the salvation (as temporary as it turned out to be***) of Harry Glicken, and the condemnation of David Johnston of the USGS. Glicken left the Coldwater camp at 9PM on the 17th, leaving Johnston - who was originally not scheduled to be there - at the setup come 8:32 the next morning (when Glicken was driving north to relieve Johnston; Glicken begged army helicopter crews to fly him in and search for Johnston, but all they found, or anyone would ever find, was a blasted, featureless ridge). Johnston, and the 56 others, were of course killed outright, or mortally burned or injured.

St. Helens last erupted in 2008.

***Glicken himself would die in a pyroclastic flow at Japan's Unzen volcano in 1991. He was 33 years of age.

(Photos from the USGS website, and the much more recent photo is my own).

[Duncan Edwards]

Father of the girl I was dating at the time was from the area. He related how they all knew it would erupt someday but was still surprised. The eruption confirmed his love for Tennessee where the last volcano preceded the dinosaurs.

[General Woundwort]

Father of the girl I was dating at the time was from the area. He related how they all knew it would erupt someday but was still surprised. The eruption confirmed his love for Tennessee where the last volcano preceded the dinosaurs.

Having seen the gargantuan mudflow on the Plains of Abraham and the remnants around Toutle, Washington, visible to this day, I cannot say I blame him.

[Fred588]

Volcanos are cool, but (well, ok they are also very hot) they are entirely unpredictable. Twenty-five years ago I was doing research, measuring temperatures inside eight caves inside the caldera of Kilauea, all of which were created in 1919. In 2008, Kilauea erupted and all or most of those caves are no longer extant.

[BogDog]

I was 20, and living in the south San Francisco bay area I remember the beautiful purple/orange sunsets we got for awhile, maybe the only nice thing to come from all that death and disaster.

Hard to believe another 44 years have passed since then.

[PA Jack]

I flew from Philly to Portland, OR, for work several times back in the early 2000’s, more than 20 years after the eruption. I had only seen the TV news footage at the time. As we descended toward Portland, the pilot came on and said that if we looked out of the right windows, we could see Mt. St. Helens; he said, “you can tell which one it is (there are many volcanic peaks in the area) - it’s the one with the top blown off.” And it was easy to tell. The sight was still eerie, with a huge are of no vegetation growth over a huge area of lava flow even after all that time. I have still never seen anything like it before or since.

[General Woundwort]

I flew from Philly to Portland, OR, for work several times back in the early 2000’s, more than 20 years after the eruption. I had only seen the TV news footage at the time. As we descended toward Portland, the pilot came on and said that if we looked out of the right windows, we could see Mt. St. Helens; he said, “you can tell which one it is (there are many volcanic peaks in the area) - it’s the one with the top blown off.” And it was easy to tell. The sight was still eerie, with a huge are of no vegetation growth over a huge area of lava flow even after all that time. I have still never seen anything like it before or since.

Photos do not do it justice. It must be seen, even visited; hikes around the shattered north face and the still-extant huge mat of logs on Spirit Lake, the beautiful south side (Ape Canyon, Plains of Abraham, the huge andesite lava flows from the 1400s), and the columnar basalts on the south side scoured and revealed by the huge 1980 mudflow that show St. Helens' varied behavior and incredible past. Without doubt, my visit was the experience of a lifetime.

[General Woundwort]

...and a couple more from my personal photos. First looking at the shattered face near the land of the hummocks, and Coldwater Lake, a beautiful trout-filled lake created by the violent 1980 eruption. All was not death and devastation in the end...