Mount St. Helens

Had enough of Derek yet? Well here comes one last post about my adventures in Washington.

On Sunday, I drove about two hours south to Mount St. Helens to see the devastation that remains from May 18th, 1980. It was amazing to see the sites and hard to imagine that day 31 years ago when the volcano erupted.

Before...

After...

Now, the blast zone is covered in these beautiful summer flowers. Quite a dichotomy!

In this picture you can see the Johnston Ridge Observatory named after the geologist, David Johnston, that died on this ridge when the landslide completely covered the forest with volcanic rock. He and 56 others perished that day, but many, many loggers were saved as it blew on a Sunday.

You can see the glaciers rebuilding and the new cone reforming and growing in the crater.
After the dust settled, 230 square miles of forest were destroyed. Many of the downed trees were salvaged by logging companies, but all of what remains point directly away from the crater.
Stumps of trees that were blasted away.

The rockslide flowed northward initially and scraped clean the sides of the ridges facing the mountain. Now trees are regrowing on the backsides of the ridges, but very few trees are growing yet on the tops or fronts of the ridges as all of the soil was removed and only rock remains. After cleaning the nearby ridges the landslide flowed down the Toutle River valley towards the right of the picture.
Some parts of this valley are 60 feet higher due to the landslide...some parts are 60o feet higher!
This bridge is 14 miles down the Toutle River valley where the landslide stopped, but the mudslides traveled all the way to the Pacific.

This was the first lateral blast and the largest landslide in recorded history, which dramatically changed the landscape forever.

Well that's all the fun for which I'll have time during this trip as I fly home on Saturday. It's been tough to be away from my girls for this month, but we were able to make the best out of the situation. I can't wait for life to get back to normal and to get ready for Shelby's first birthday!!