Monumental Memorial

At 8:30 a.m. on May 18, 1980, snow began melting rapidly from an ominous bulge on the north flank of the long-dormant volcano known as Mt. St. Helens.

Volcanologist David Johnston of the U.S. Geological Survey was monitoring the bulge’s growth five miles away.

At Spirit Lake, a mile below the mountain’s crest, Harry Truman waited at the lodge he built in the 1920s. The volcano had begun rumbling a month earlier, but Truman refused to leave.

Both men expected some kind of eruption event; neither expected a cataclysm.

At 8:32, Johnston radioed USGS headquarters in Vancouver, Wash., 50 miles away: “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”

Mt. St. Helens exploded with a primeval roar. A mile-wide crater opened, and the top 1,300 feet of the mountain disappeared. Rocks, pumice and ash, superheated to 700 degrees, rocketed outward at 500 mph. Evergreen forests were sawed off at ground level for miles around. Plants and animals were vaporized.

Nothing ever was found of Johnston or Truman. But the bold young scientist and the stubborn old man are now remembered in sites named for them at Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Mt. St. Helens is 100 miles south of Seattle, 50 miles north of Portland, Ore. Thousands of people in both cities noticed their windows vibrate from the eruption shock waves and saw the mushroom cloud tower into the stratosphere. The eruption raged for a day and a night, engorging rivers with mud and burying evacuated communities and farms in dust and ash. Many people had balked at the 10-mile scope of the evacuation zone, and in the end, the death toll was put at 57.

From the beginning, people were eager to see the aftermath of such a powerful force of nature. But until last year, few had been to Johnston’s last lookout, and fewer still had visited Harry’s Ridge. That’s where I headed last August. I wanted to see ground zero, to stand where Johnston and Truman stood and try to imagine experiencing the volcano.

Johnston’s lookout is now the site of the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which opened last spring. From there I would hike to Harry’s Ridge. Just beyond that, Harry Truman’s lodge lies under 300 feet of volcanic debris.

The observatory has the best accessible view of Mt. St. Helens’ cratered hulk. As I crossed the observatory parking lot, the volcano was clearly visible five miles to the south. It was still venting puffs of steam, and dust devils born of volcanic ash raced across its moonscape flanks.

I obtained a trail permit and maps at the observatory office and admired the spectacular eruption photos taken by amateur photographer Gary Rosenquist. I looked in on the film and studied the exhibits telling the stories of the eruption and the people who experienced it. I listened to a talk for schoolchildren at the observatory overlook where Johnston took his last breath. Then I hit the Boundary Trail, headed for Truman Trail and Harry’s Ridge.

My boots soon were coated with fine ash as I wound along a precipice strewn with pumice and basalt. The volcano now sported a halo of clouds spawned by moist winds off the Pacific.

Native Americans called the mountain Loowit--Lady of Fire. In their mythology, two nearby volcanoes, Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams, were male warriors who fought for her favor, causing smoke and burning rocks to rain down on Earth, blotting out the sun. Geologists believe that Hood and Adams did erupt simultaneously in the past.

I wound down Boundary Trail through desolate stretches of gray volcanic ash that had once been lush with evergreens and wildflowers. Looking back, beyond Johnston Ridge, I caught glimpses of some of the millions of conifers that had been flattened by the force of the volcanic blast; the higher hills were carpeted with the dead trees’ nude silver trunks.

At 1.5 miles along the Boundary Trail I came to a point. Across a vast pumice plain, I could see the inside of the crater. Grapefruit-size boulders of andesite, dacite and pumice littered its ash surface.

(In recent geologic times, the lava oozing up under the Cascade Mountains, which stretch from British Columbia to California, has been predominantly two materials: andesite, named for the rock underpinning the Andes in South America, and dacite. The latter, thick and viscous, traps gas and steam, and makes for the violent eruptions that have been typical of the Cascades. Less dangerous volcanoes, like Hawaii’s, spew a more fluid lava.)

At two miles, Truman Trail forked to the right. I continued on the Boundary Trail to Harry’s Saddle, at three miles. Elk tracks pocked the surface of this sandy area, an encouraging sign of recovery. The wind blew fine dacite ash over me as I turned right from the main trail and ascended an ill-defined route for one mile to the top of Harry’s Ridge. Miles of volcanic destruction came into view to the east, capped by the snowy cone of Mt. Adams. Below me was Spirit Lake, half-covered with masses of dead timber.

I retraced my route. I came upon a ranger and two visitors studying stalks of pink fireweed that had sprung from the pavement of pumice and ash at their feet. Life was thought to have been wiped out on this side of the mountain. The promontory we were on, five miles from the crater, was sandblasted to bare rock, then resurfaced with glowing ash. But little miracles prevailed. Pocket gophers survived in soil under isolated patches of snow that, unaccountably, had gone unmelted. After the eruption, these tiny animals burrowed through the ash like little plows, mixing it with underlying soil and fungi, leaving cultivated patches. Seeds of fireweed, lupine and thimbleberry blew in to take root.

Life now has a toehold on Mt. St. Helens. By the time our great-grandchildren are middle-age, most of the eruption scars will be healed. Evergreens and wildflowers, elk and trout will have returned in abundance. Until then it will remain an extraordinary open-air museum looking more like the back of the moon than a national forest.

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GUIDEBOOK: Visiting the Volcano

Getting there: Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is in southwest Washington off Interstate 5. Drive time to Johnston Ridge Observatory is about 3 1/4 hours from Seattle, 2 1/2 hours from Portland, Ore. Take I-5 exit 49 east to Washington 504, five miles to the monument visitors center; telephone (360) 274-2100. Johnston Ridge Observatory is another 45 miles at the end of Washington 504; tel. (360) 274-2140. Obtain hiking advice and trail permits there. A cafe is at the Coldwater Ridge Visitors Center on Washington 504.

Where to stay: There are many public and private campgrounds in the area (but not within the monument) and motels in Castle Rock at exit 49 on I-5.

Timberland Inn and Suites, tel. (360) 274-6002; $65 to $119.

Mt. St. Helens Motel, tel. (360) 274-7721; $48-$73.

7 West Motel, tel. (360) 274-7526; $38-$55.

For more information: Washington State Tourism, P.O. Box 42500, Olympia, WA 98504-2500; tel. (800) 544-1800 or (360) 586-2088, Internet https://www.tourism.wa.gov.

A useful book is “A Complete Guide to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument,” published by the Mountaineers, $12.95.