Our Green America


(view all entries)
Mt. Saint Helens posted 5/31/09 by Julia (related gallery)
Mt. St. Helens, along with Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams, looms over Portland. On our first day in Portland we took a walk in a park near Elizabeth’s parents’ house and at one point we could see two huge singular mountains, one to the north and one to the east. The perfectly conical, snow-draped, and picture perfect mountain to the east was Mt. Hood and the flat-topped sleeping giant to the north was Mt. St. Helens. - When we left Portland (which was somewhat bittersweet, because I feel like we could have explored it for several more days and Elizabeth’s parents were awesome), we crossed over the Columbia and into Washington (new state!). It didn’t take us that long to get to Mt. St. Helens, only about an hour and a half, which at this point is chump change to us. The road to the peak wound through mountains and groves of evergreens. Some stands were marked with the year they had been planted and their planned harvest year. Along the way we caught glimpses and views of Mt. St. Helens. We stopped at a view point to have some peanut butter crackers. Even from there it was daunting. We were already in the blast zone and still about ten miles away. We could see the volcano’s sleek sides and the edges of the crater on its left side. While in Portland we had entertained the idea of climbing to the crater’s edge, but the road to the trailhead was buried in snow, so perhaps it was the wrong time of year for that type of excursion. It would have been a great adventure. Maybe we’ll try it next time. Mt. St. Helens erupted in May 1980. The eruption caused a 5 point earthquake and the largest landslide in recorded history. It ripped apart and reshaped a landscape. People died - campers, scientists, vacationers. Trees twelve feet in diameter were snapped like twigs from the 300 mph winds. Ash from the explosion circled the earth for 15 days. A crater now scars the volcano and cradles an active lava dome which is intently studied by geologists. Five more miles and we couldn’t go any farther. From the Johnston Ridge Visitor Center, Mt. St. Helens truly made me feel small. The earth, or at least the world presented to us by other humans, is on a human and understandable scale. In the presence of something so, well, tall and unmitigated, it is hard to comprehend earth’s true proportions even when they are presented so clearly before you. The visitor center sits directly across a valley in front of the crater. We listened to a ranger talk on the plaza. I’d heard about how a volcano’s sides can bulge when pressure builds up inside, but before she showed us I’d never seen the before and after. Seriously, Google image search it. If you can see side by side pictures, the changes are amazing. You’d never guess it was the same mountain. Then we went inside to watch a big, epic, shaky-whoa-the-volcano-is-exploooodiing! kind of cinematography movie with an “in a world!”-type narrator about the eruption. It was kind of ridiculous and over the top, but at least it was funny. At the end it showed a still of the mountain before it blew and then the screen rolls up and the curtains behind it part and through a wall of windows you		can see the panorama of Mt. St. Helens as it is today. We skipped the other ranger talk we had planned to go to and just walked up to some other view points instead. We saw the drastic alteration this land had endured. Gray logs and fractured stumps dot the hills, radiating outward from the blast site. Remnants of lava flows and landslides past settled in a still river on the valley’s floor at the foot of the mountain. Spirit Lake, a dagger of dark blue in the otherwise grayed landscape, now sits in a different place than it did before the blast. Pre-eruption, we wouldn’t have been able to see it from where we were. When Mt. St. Helen’s blew, it changed the position of the lake, first by pushing it up mountains and then laying new land underneath it before the waters could resettle. This was an incredibly fast and forceful change. By raising it up, the winds and landslide from the 1980 eruption brought the lake within sight of the visitor center. An older and younger woman with a toddler on a leash walked up the hill near us. The boy laughed hysterically as he walked on top of the circular stone wall that surrounded a viewing plaza. His mom guided him with the plush teddy bear leash, the harness clipped over his dark green jumper. He screamed when it was time to leave. He was having fun. We left when the sun was beginning to get low. We still had a couple of hours of driving to do. When we drove past the sign signaling the reach of the blast zone, I was quietly relieved. Later on, we saw the women with the toddler at the place we stopped to eat. The boy was now waving down at his family from a round clear bubble window in the multicolored, tube-y play area. They saw us and we waved to each other. Moments like that are nice when we go days or weeks at a time without seeing anyone familiar. Tonight, we’re staying in a motel in Tumwater, WA, just south of Olympia. Tomorrow we have a choice. Go west and explore the Olympic Peninsula or go east and investigate Seattle. What shall we do?

Mt. St. Helens, along with Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams, looms over Portland. On our first day in Portland we took a walk in a park near Elizabeth’s parents’ house and at one point we could see two huge singular mountains, one to the north and one to the east. The perfectly conical, snow-draped, and picture perfect mountain to the east was Mt. Hood and the flat-topped sleeping giant to the north was Mt. St. Helens.

When we left Portland (which was somewhat bittersweet, because I feel like we could have explored it for several more days and Elizabeth’s parents were awesome), we crossed over the Columbia and into Washington (new state!).

It didn’t take us that long to get to Mt. St. Helens, only about an hour and a half, which at this point is chump change to us. The road to the peak wound through mountains and groves of evergreens. Some stands were marked with the year they had been planted and their planned harvest year. Along the way we caught glimpses and views of Mt. St. Helens. We stopped at a view point to have some peanut butter crackers. Even from there it was daunting. We were already in the blast zone and still about ten miles away. We could see the volcano’s sleek sides and the edges of the crater on its left side. While in Portland we had entertained the idea of climbing to the crater’s edge, but the road to the trailhead was buried in snow, so perhaps it was the wrong time of year for that type of excursion. It would have been a great adventure. Maybe we’ll try it next time.

Mt. St. Helens erupted in May 1980. The eruption caused a 5 point earthquake and the largest landslide in recorded history. It ripped apart and reshaped a landscape. People died - campers, scientists, vacationers. Trees twelve feet in diameter were snapped like twigs from the 300 mph winds. Ash from the explosion circled the earth for 15 days. A crater now scars the volcano and cradles an active lava dome which is intently studied by geologists.

Five more miles and we couldn’t go any farther. From the Johnston Ridge Visitor Center, Mt. St. Helens truly made me feel small. The earth, or at least the world presented to us by other humans, is on a human and understandable scale. In the presence of something so, well, tall and unmitigated, it is hard to comprehend earth’s true proportions even when they are presented so clearly before you. The visitor center sits directly across a valley in front of the crater. We listened to a ranger talk on the plaza. I’d heard about how a volcano’s sides can bulge when pressure builds up inside, but before she showed us I’d never seen the before and after. Seriously, Google image search it. If you can see side by side pictures, the changes are amazing. You’d never guess it was the same mountain. Then we went inside to watch a big, epic, shaky-whoa-the-volcano-is-exploooodiing! kind of cinematography movie with an “in a world!”-type narrator about the eruption. It was kind of ridiculous and over the top, but at least it was funny. At the end it showed a still of the mountain before it blew and then the screen rolls up and the curtains behind it part and through a wall of windows you