I'd never been to Mt. St. Helens. Living so close, you sometimes never go see the things that most people think are amazing. I knew I wanted to. It was one of the "Quad" that I wanted to see. So while we were staying down with my Uncle, we took a day and went. We hiked for hours, saw all the sites, listened to a few talks, watched a movie, read everything in the discover center and even had a picnic! We had a great day and I'm so glad we got the chance to go.
For those that don't know. Mt. St. Helens is an active volcano here in Washington. It's one of the only really active ones around. Here is a little article from the website that I found.
At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted.
Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.
In 1982, the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.
The May 18, 1980 eruption was but one more event in the volcano's 50,000 year long eruptive history. During the 4,000 years preceding 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted enough lava, pumice and ash to build the entire mountain we see today. When you know what to look for you can find evidence of these eruptions all around the volcano. Look along exposed riverbanks for ancient mudflow deposits or along steep roadsides for the layers of ashy and pumice that drifted northeast of the volcano.
Here are just a few of the pictures from the day.
