Mt St Helens Visit
Today we took a drive to Mt St Helens. WOW! What an amazing place. It’s incredible how much forest was destroyed by the blast and how close David Johnstone was to the mountain. For those who don’t know, David Johnstone was a USGS employee monitoring the volcano from approximately 6 miles away to the north. Unfortunately he was killed within seconds of the explosion. He had enough time to radio the main USGS office in Vancouver, WA that the explosion was occurring.
The drive down was long for Zach but he was a trooper. Here are some photos.
Posing for Mom.
Westerly view of the mountain. It was very hazy so the photos were not particularly good.
Mountain lake (called Coldwater Lake) created by ash dam.
Looks like the desert.
It’s amazing to think that this was a lush forest. Now, 26 years later, and small plants barely grow within the blast zone. The ash flows were very deep - this is apparent by the deep ravines cut by streams flowing from the mountain.
We’ll need to return via Windy Ridge above Spirit Lake - there is a huge field of fallen trees that is an amazing site.