Mount Saint Helens – National Volcanic Monument

The Eruption of Mount Saint Helens May 18, 1980.

This picture above was taken the Fall of 1980, about four months after the eruption. What was Spirit Lake is in the foreground covered in logs and debris. If you look closely you can see the blown down trees and timber on the surrounding ridges caused by the sideways energy of the eruption on the morning of May 18, 1980.

Living within 50 miles of Mt. St Helens we got to experience 1st hand the imagined excitement, broadcast by Paul Harvey on his daily radio news casts and other TV news reports, of the small eruptions shooting plumes of steam and ash 20,000 ft (about the length of 60 city blocks) skyward from the time the mountain woke up with her first rumblings on March 28th 1980.

Beginning in March of 1980 small eruptions began on Mt. St Helens.

The steam and ash plume rose up to 20,000 ft.

With each small eruption before May 18, 1980, St Helens gave warning as to what was about to happen.

But the devastation and aftermath from the May 18th eruption of Mt.St Helens, blowing 1,300 ft (about the height of the Empire State Building) off her top, curtailed the excitement to a feeling of wonderment and loss.

May 18, 1980, 8:32 a.m. PDT – Mount Saint Helens started it’s major eruption.

The May18th eruption of Mt. St Helens brought death (57 people perished in the eruption) and destruction to the area around the volcano. The ash plume blocked the sun and turned day into night for 100’s of miles to the east, showering 6″ of ash on Yakima and Ritzville, WA and other small communities in Eastern Washington. Ash fell in Washington, Idaho, and Montana with reports of light dustings of ash farther east. Like every summer for 25 years (1975 – 2000) we traveled east on I-90 through this area on our way to Northern Minnesota for our West Coast / East Coast family reunion at my parent’s lake cabin. In the summer of 1980 the ash alongside of the highway in Eastern WA was thick. Eastern Washington, with its flat rolling farmland, is known for its hot and windy weather in the summer months, which in turn made the area (including most of the 80’s) encompassed with dozens of “ash” dust twisters rolling across the land as far as you could to see….all the way to the horizon. We found ash on our Road Trip as far east as Billings, MT that summer. It is funny, as we made this journey east on I-90 yearly, we always stopped in Butte, MT at a little gift shop on Harrison Ave called the Butte Copper Company. Talking to the owner, that summer of 1980, I asked her how much Mt. St Helens ash they got. She replied….a very heavy dusting and like a fool, she continued, she hosed it all off her property down the storm drain instead of sweeping it up and packaging it in little samples packets and selling it to every tourist who came in and asked her if they received any ash fall from the eruption of Mt. St Helens.

On May 26,1980, Mount Saint Helens had another major eruption with the wind carrying the ash plume north and west. The ash covered our hometown area of Centralia/Chehalis WA with at least 2 inches. Of course, we had learned some of the lessons we had been seeing on TV, and reading about, how folks had been coping with the ash in Eastern WA – from wearing face masks to putting pantyhose over your car’s carburetor air intake – in other words – the ash got into everything. My mom and dad, who lived in Centralia, started getting calls from all over the country, from family and friends, asking about the Mt. St Helens and the ash. Being a girl of the Great Depression, my mom saved everything, including dozens of empty Folger’s Coffee cans….why?….I don’t know….but because she had all these coffee cans, she filled them with ash and sent them to all these folks who called and asked “how they were doing” and about the ash. After my folks passed away, and we were clearing out their home, in their panty/freezer room, in the attached garage, I found one of the Folger’s Coffee cans filled with ash. I still have it, but I’m guessing the Folger’s Coffee can is worth more than the ash.

About one year after the May 18th eruption of Mt. St Helens, on March 17, 1981, (Saint Patrick’s Day) my in-laws, Becky and I chartered a small Cessna airplane to fly us to the mountain. The airport, where we hired the plane and pilot, was at Toledo WA, which is about 40 miles, as the crow flies, west of the mountain. What was fun, interesting, and even scary is that as the pilot flew towards St Helens, and over Spirit Lake, the crater of the volcano was in full view. Of course, we all thought this was a magnificent view of the mountain and devastation, but as we got closer to the mountain the pilot just kept going and flying right along side and into the crater. We felt like we could reach out and touch the building lava dome as we flew right beside it….which in all reality was crazy but really cool.

Flying towards the crater with the lava dome in view.

The pilot continued flying down the North Fork of the Toutle River Valley letting us see all the destruction from the mud flows. I will say, without hesitation, that this was a very thrilling plane ride with the views planted in my mind that still remain today. Images, that when then President Carter came out to the area to view the destruction, described the area as a lunar moonscape.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve visited the Mount Saint Helens area, taking family and friends to the volcano over the years. But, as generations pass and the mountain and surrounding area is “greening up” and recovers, the May 18,1980 eruption of St Helens is becoming a distant memory. Fortunately, the eruption of the mountain was well documented with photos, news reels, and written memories.

Continuing below are more pictures of the destruction in the area around Mount Saint Helens.