RHH's photos with the keyword: 1980

One more picture from a recent visit to Mount St. Helens, this shot looks south across the debris field below the volcano's cone, which is to the right of the picture. The picture was taken from Johnson Ridge Observatory north of the volcano and Spirit Lake is just over the low ridge at the end of the debris field, with Windy Ridge beyond. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/08/mount-saint-helens.html

We were at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument a couple of weeks ago. We had planned on doing some hiking but it was far too hot and so we did our sight-seeing by car ending up at Windy Ridge. Windy Ridge is to the southeast of the volcano and can be reached only by a long drive on Forest Service roads and then a short but steep hike to the top of the ridge. Visiting the volcano was quite an experience for us. The eruption had taken place nearly 30 years ago in 1980 and we expected to see the vegetation in the blast area well on the way to recovery, but found instead that the area around the volcano is still a barren wilderness. Even at the outer edges of the blast area, six to eight miles from the volcano there are few trees growing and nearer the volcano in the area shown in this picture there are areas that are still bare of vegetation and completely treeless. Farther from the volcano the trees are still laid out in neat rows just as they were felled by the blast, but near the volcano the trees are completely gone, in most cases not even the stumps remaining. Spirit Lake, too, is still partly filled with floating trunks of trees that were blown into the lake by the eruption. As for the volcano itself, though it lost 1200 feet of elevation in the eruption it is still an impressive mountain, looming over the surrounding area. In this photo the side of the mountain that collapsed during the eruption can be seen as well as steam from some of the vents on the mountain and the new cone that is building within the crater.

Taken at an observation point in the Mount St. Helens area called "Miner's Car." The sign nearby reads, "This car was tossed about like a toy, rolled from across the road where it had been parked. Owners of the car were in their cabin at a nearby mine and were killed when Mount St. Helens erupted." This is five or six miles from the crater.

Norway Pass is about six miles east of Mount St. Helens and is part of the area devastated in the blast. This is the blast area 30 years later and is typical of the whole area. Photo taken by my wife.