Mt St Helens stories, tell yours here

[Buckeye]

I was on a Greyhound bus returning to Tacoma (where I went to college) after a visit home in Seattle. The bus driver pulled off the side of the freeway and we all got out and watched the eruption.

 

[gumshoe]

I live in the Pacific Northwest. A couple of months after Mt. St. Helens blew, a coworker friend invited me to fly over the crater in his 2-seater aircraft. I will never forget the devastation I saw looking down on the thousands of denuded trees all blown down in the same direction. As other described, they looked like matchsticks from that distance. I also asked my coworker what those "yellow rivers" were, and I think he said they were sulfur flows. While we were above the crater, the small plane started sputtering and my friend starting adjusting some knobs on the dashboard. I got really scared and thought: I wonder if they will find our bodies down in the crater!

 

[Koolau]

Drove through in 1986 and could still see the trees laid over all in one direction. Visited the A-Frame filled with ash-concrete and a tree stump. Pretty impressive what nature can do.

 

[pacergal]

I remember the eruption very well. I was living in Medicine Hat, Alberta at the time , about 1000 km from the volcano. Our US cable TV stations were out of Spokane, WA so we had lots of news about the eruption, before, during and after, I will always remember the TV shots of Yakima at mid day being in almost total darkness due to the ash, It was very surreal. Even 100 km away, we had ash on our cars for several days.

In the late 90's (probably 1998 or so), I took our family and young kids on a vacation and I had to go and see the site. As others have noted, the trees along the road to the mountain were laid down like matchsticks, but even then, you were amazed at how nature was rebounding and just how much greenery was regenerating after less than 20 years.

The Visitor Center was very well done and was one of the best that I have been to. After you watched the film, the curtains were drawn and you were staring into the side of the mountain that had been blown away. A memory that I won't forget.

Do any of the PNW'ers remember Harry Truman? He was an old man (probably in his 80's), who lived near the mountain, I think at Spirit Lake? He refused to leave when the evacuation orders were issued,and was never found, so he is probably still there, buried underneath meters of debris and hot ash.

It's amazing what you remember in detail from your past!

bolded by me.
Yes, so many tried to encourage him to leave, but he never did. Other than forcibly picking him up, there was nothing else to be done. The man lived and died on his mountain. God bless him.

 

[Koolau]

bolded by me.
Yes, so many tried to encourage him to leave, but he never did. Other than forcibly picking him up, there was nothing else to be done. The man lived and died on his mountain. God bless him.

I thought at the time "Well, an 80 year old has lived a long life and should be allowed to die as he wishes." I still feel that way, but now that I'm a stone's throw from 80 myself, I think "Hey, I've still got a lot of living to do. I'm not hanging around an explosive volcano. What? Are you nuts?"

 

[tominboise]

I was in Helena, Montana at that time, working at a gold mine. I remember the sheriff deputies coming to the mine and informing us about the eruption. The ash was falling by that time. We drove home through conditions similar to a blizzard. The highway department had to plow the ash from some roads. I believe that the ash ruined the engine in my pickup, as it started burning oil and required a rebuild some time later.

Wild times.