42 Replies to “40 Years Ago Today”

  1. Now there was nature beyond government control. I remember watching that and it sure was an impressive display of power.

  2. Yup. If it had happened 20 years later it would have been called conclusive evidence of anthropomorphic climate change.

    1. If it had happened a few decades later, there would have been many more country cottages on the slopes, owned by Seattle and Silicon Valley bigshots with hard-ons for nature—few of whom would have ever known what hit them, much less been found.

  3. Damn I’m getting old, time flies, that big bang made it rain 7.5 inches here in southwest Alberta. In these times where idiots like Suzuki and Gore are given huge money and constant media coverage from the media morons, I think it is a good time to unveil and sell to world governments my invention, the “Volcano Cork”. It would sell big time, why look at the cluttered landscape of windmills that I believe are spinning and pulling the world around and around faster than before causing time to fly. Government idiots paid for those windmills with taxpayers money. I’ll apply for government grants! My theories are just as good as globull warming dammit!

  4. Approaching the eastern viewpoint is eye opening. Flattened forest, and viewpoint covered in pumice-like debris.
    Spirit lake full of logs.
    Natural spectacle humans cannot cause.

    1. One of the concerns was the economic aftermath. Weyerhauser had logging rights in the area and it lost a lot of its potential revenue that day. Few of the trees that were knocked over were of any use.

      1. Actually, Weyerhaeuser owns the land adjacent to the blast site and promptly salvaged 850 million board feet (about 20% of Alberta’s annual harvest). They moved in 80 yarders and had around 1000 loggers on it. They burned through about half a dozen chains per chainsaw per day in that abrasive ash. I have seen those sites and where the State owned land was left to nature to slowly recover and where Weyerhaeuser promptly reforested is like day and night. That private forest is now close to being harvested again while the state land is decades behind. https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/sustainability/communities/stakeholder-engagement/mount-st-helens/forest-management/

        I was driving down the Fraser Canyon when it went off and I heard the explosion.

        1. I recall hearing something at the time that the companies were worried about how much money they’d lose. I think the issue was that the trees that were left over might not have been top grade as a result of blast exposure.

          As for logging the area again, it’s my understanding that a 40-year cycle is what the forestry firms use.

          1. It that region, growing mostly Douglas fir, depending on the site characteristics (universal answer to every question in forestry), 40 to 60 years would be the rotation age (35 on high producing sites). In Northern BC, it would be double that, and the species would be spruce, pine or balsam fir. On public land, optimizing growth is passe so who knows….

        2. “They burned through about half a dozen chains per chainsaw per day in that abrasive ash”

          🙂

  5. Let’s keep in mind. If Greta had been around then she would have scolded it into a full stop.

    1. Sayyy … you don’t think … if we tossed her into one of St. Helen’s steaming vents … we could STOP another massive Co2 release? Just a thought. She’s got to still be a Virgin, Right!?

  6. 40 years! Wow. I remember it well. I went to see the volcano few years ago. We left our travel trailer at the KOA and drove up to the top for the day. It was certainly interesting. Well worth the stop.

    1. 40 years ago … I was a chaperone on a HS kids bus trip to Young Life’s Malibu Club in BC … 100mi up the Princess Louisa inlet. St. Helens had just recently blown its top, and we stopped the bus on I-5 at a viewpoint (wish I had bought and kept one of those schmaltzy St Helens T-shirts they were selling) … it was an impressive sight … and felt like a massive jolt to our confident grip on the planet.

  7. The ash cloud travelled all the way to Southern Alberta. It took a week before we had visibility over 10 feet.

    1. I was in La Ronge Sask., getting ready for a summer of uranium exploration. Evenings at Gene’s watching events unfold on TV.

    2. Yea…it fell in Calgary as well..a light dusting to be sure, but given the distance….it was a WOW moment.

    1. I remember waking up before my clock radio was set to go off. It was as if I had been jolted by something as I had a feeling that something strange had just happened.

      I didn’t hear the blast, so I suspect that I might have felt the seismic wave. It was strong enough that UBC’s seismograph recorded it.

      1. I was a geology student at UBC at the time. I fondly remember the field trips to Washington State a couple of weeks after the event to see effects of the eruption. Incredible sights of what the mudflows had done down the rivers. And the flattening of the forests.

  9. I remember that morning. I was mowing my lawn in Philomath, Oregon, some 130 miles away, and heard the explosions (dull thuds). I thought it was somebody doing blasting in a nearby quarry (odd for a Sunday, but possible), but about 9:00 AM I got a phone call from my folks telling me to turn on the television.

    We were fortunate to be (mostly) not downwind.

  10. I was in Waterton at the time. Seemed so far away yet everything was covered in ash the following morning. We left the windows open that night not realizing everything in the house would also be covered

    1. If any ash reached that part of the country, it would have been finer particles and probably not a lot. That would have been due to prevailing winds as well as most of the heavier material falling closer to the blast site.

  13. I remember the aftermath. We were in Libby, Mt on Monday. Grey ash on cars and side of the road. Had to stop and get masks for Dad who had respiratory issues. (It blew up on Sunday morning.) I was around the south and east side in 1990. As we were driving along, beautiful coastal rainforest turned into a mountainside covered with blowdown. Looked like a giant dropped a box of matches. By the way, there is a lot of good video and documentaries on YouTube about this.

  14. One concern that scientists had was that the blast area would remain bare and lifeless for a long time. Aside from the forests that were destroyed, a lot of wildlife was killed as well and much of the previous watershed had been disrupted.

    They were surprised that within 2 or 3 years, weeds started growing there, presumably from seeds that had been brought by the wind. I believe that some burrowing animals, such as certain rodent and insect species, did survive, but food would have been scarce at first. In less than 5 years, fish had returned, but in small numbers. Some of them grew to be quite large due to the absence of predators.

    From what I’ve heard, the blast area was largely set aside as a research facility as it gave scientists a unique opportunity to observe how an ecosystem can re-establish itself.

  15. Although based in Ottawa, I was in Winnipeg a few days after the event and the military police were driving around the base picking up joggers who were out running despite the thick glass haze that would fill their lungs. A Canadian Forces Argus was at Mountain Home Air Force Base (Idaho) when the blast occurred and was taxied into a hangar for coverage with a Huey helicopter air-taxiing alongside.

  16. We visited Mount St. Helens seven years ago – stayed at Seaquest State Park which turned out to be right across the highway from the visitor centre for Mount St. Helens. After two days of socked-in weather (it was November) we were about to give up and leave but checked the visitor centre one last time. They have a live video feed from the Johnston Observatory beside the mountain which showed clear visibility so we changed plans and headed up to the volcano. We had the place almost to ourselves – there couldn’t have been more than a half dozen cars in the large parking lot.

    I’ve got to admire the courage of Landsburg to store his camera in its bag and cover it with his body before being engulfed by the pyroclastic flow.

    1. I’ve got to admire the courage of Landsburg to store his camera in its bag and cover it with his body before being engulfed by the pyroclastic flow.

      He was lucky he had time to do that. Another photographer was in a similar situation but he survived:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njV9ski1gB4

  17. 40 years plus one day ago, a buddy of mine was on a tree planting crew which had just finished a several week job. The next day it turned out they needn’t have bothered planting trees on Mt. St. Helen’s.

    1. Was living in the south Okanagan at the time, I remember our cars were covered with the ash. Later, my uncle came to visit, he was a geologist and vacationing in the area and brought me a big cup sample of the ash and related debris. I was reminded of the awesome displays of power the planet is capable of, that can show us how insignificant we really are!

  19. Two days later Regina was overcast and there were ash particles on cars. Not enough to see on the ground. I spoke to an uncle of mine who was living in Chilliwack, BC at the time. When he heard the wwwwhhhhump, he thought my cousin had fallen out of bed. When he heard the second wwwwhhhhump a second or so later he no longer thought it was his son. How could he have gotten up to the top bunk so fast and why would he fall out twice? He found out later when he turned on the news.

    1. Yup, Saskatoon also. The violently-red sunsets went on for a good week, at least. The fine, gritty ash on the cars in our driveway was incredible. I vaguely remember the news-critters telling us how to clean off the ash without destroying the paint jobs by rubbing the powdered pumice.

  20. I was on hole 3 of the Osoyoos golf course when Mt St Helens went up. My first thought was who is is doing road work on a holiday Sunday, Had a face mask on at 6pm when the ash started falling.

  21. “I think the whole damn thing is overexaggerated … Spirit Lake and Mount St. Helens are my life … You couldn’t pull me out with a mule team,” Truman told the Longview Daily News.

    There are some familiar sounding famous last words.

    1. Harry Truman stayed put at his lodge. He was never seen again.

  24. I was about 12 at the time, but I think I remember wondering if volcanology might be the coolest discipline to pursue. Many other career choices have come and gone since then, but I oddly ended up being a geologist for a time.

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