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Shawn, this may 18th is the 44th anniversary of the eruption. Thank you for such an excellent video on the mountain that became a critical event in my life. I happened to be pregnant but not doing well at that time. As the bulge on the mountain grew so fast, I was joking about she was pg. During the ashfall in Moses Lake on May 18, I was covering my freshly planted garden within paint tarps to protect the garden. The mountain blew at 8:32 AM by 10:30 AM. The sun was setting in the east. We were blacker than Yakima ever got that day. We were stuck in our house watching black and white TV of the flooding going on down the Toutle River. We couldn't afford color TV yet. Cleaning up the 2 1/8 inches of ash from our yard was a big job. While cleaning the ash, we all wore bandanas. Which were required to be removed before you entered the local bank. Because my 18 month old daughter kept trying to eat the ash, my 7 year old had to keep her in the house while we removed ash from the driveway. It turned out the ash tasted salty. BTW, the ash was too heavy to lift with a shovel. We ended up pushing it along the cement with snow shovels the same way you push powder snow. The ash would then almost flow as long as you kept it moving.

Thanks for the informative overview of Mt St Helen’s geological context and history. My first personal experience with St Helens was climbing the mountain in my teens ca 1962-63 with the Seattle Mountaineers. The standard route then was from the north up a glacier that no longer exists (to a summit that no longer exists). In the spring of 1980 I was invited on a couple light plane flights around the mountain. We were treated to a close (but thankfully not too close) view of a steam and ash eruption during one of the flights. The morning of May 18 I raced up to a viewpoint in the hills west of Portland. My first view of the mountain literally took my breath away. I stopped breathing for a moment. Nothing that preceded prepared me for that sight. The conversation of a couple standing next to me about a friend who had left to revisit St Helens the day before caught my attention. We knew the same daredevil. We now wondered if we would ever see him again. He showed up at my place a few days later with photographs and a hair raising tale to tell.

Geophysicist...I've had the privilege, mostly by luck, to hike it roughly once every 11 years since it erupted. It's been amazing and instructive to see it recover (flora and fauna) over the decades. The last hike I was able to bring my niece and nephew along and explain what was going on, the various rock types, etc. Lots of fun and education for them. Great video; I appreciate the content.

Thank you for doing this lesson! We were stationed in the Tacoma area when I was 14-16 in the early ‘70s. I was on Mt Rainer several times and we went to Mt St Helens once as far as I remember. I don’t remember ever realizing these were volcanos or maybe I thought dormant meant dead. No one ever acted like they could erupt. A classmate of mine had an uncle who had climbed Mt Everest and he came and spoke to the class about how they trained on Mt Rainer for the climb. I was shocked when Mt St Helens blew in 1980. I was in San Francisco at the time and was not affected. Later I saw a lahar map for Tacoma for Mt Rainer and couldn’t believe we had lived in a danger zone. We had lived in Alaska from 67-69 and I was so used to the many mountains, and at that time I was learning about glaciers and the valleys they created but had not really got to how the mountain ranges were made. But living there started my geology interest. We learned all about the ‘64 earthquake but I didn’t realize that there were volcanos across Cook Inlet. I am from the Rocky Mountain region, so mountains are so familiar and as a kid I just took them for granted, until we moved away from them. It was not until moving back to the Rockies as an adult and finding the Roadside Geology books that I really started getting past the basics. I am thrilled to see that you worked on the new Idaho Roadside Geology book. I will have to get that one.

I was leaving the midwest for the west coast just after Mt Saint Helens erupted in the early 80s. Many people grew impatient when it didn’t erupt right away, didn’t believe the geologists. One famous man, Truman, refused to leave. He was buried under hundreds of feet of a new lake replaced the old. Some 50ish people snuck in around police lines and were killed. Later I knew someone who was cutting firewood north from it. She wandered the logging roads with 100 ft visibility to get home. “Ash” is too kind of a word. It attacks the lungs, and with enough in the lungs, essentially becomes concrete until the person dies. The abrasive “ash” clogs engine filters and abrades the engine. Many cars soon become junk when the engine soon fails. Volcanoes are awesome from a distance, but unpredictable and very dangerous.

I was 8 when this happened. I remember finding ash on my mom and dad's cars the next morning in Central Kansas. My aunt who lived in California at the time gave me a bottle of ash. This event sparked my geology fascination. I've always loved Mt. St. Helen's. I would love to climb it

Professor Shawn, I remember that day very clearly. I was being transferred from the ship I was on while it was in the shipyards in Bremerton WA to a C school in Pensacola Florida. I was flying to the San Francisco Bay Area for some leave time before going to school. I flew over Mt St Helen’s the day before the full eruption. Our pilot pointed out the volcano as we flew over it. When I finished the school, I was transferred to a new ship that was in the yards in Portland Oregon. You could easily see the smoking volcano from the ship.

Nice review of the Mt. St. Helens eruptions. I was living in Kalispell MT at the time, and we were confined to quarters because the ash that traveled that far was bereft of everything except the finest ash. Slightly off topic: Ash from the Yellowstone Lava Creek eruption traveled to eastern Nebraska in sufficient volume to kill herds of large mammals that were preserved in the ash. There is a state park (Ashfall State Park) on a site discovered by Mike Voorhies, a legally blind paleontologist. If you ever travel to my state, I think that you would enjoy stopping there. There is some information on the internet, but a NOVA episode about the park, "Buried in Ash", is hard to find now.

I collected some of its ash when I visited the area as a teenager in the late 90s. I've watched a few docus about it but this presentation gave me a more comprehensive geological understanding of it. Thank you!

Thanks for this video. In the early 2000's I was an avid watcher of All the seismic networks on the cascade mountain range and also observed live video from Johnson Observatory on the noth side of Mt St Helens. I was actually watching the seismic readout just prior to the 2004 eruption on 1 computer and the live video from Johnson Observatory on another. I made a comment to my husband "that volcano is ready to blow ". Just then it did right before My eyes. Great presentation Shawn. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐👍👍👍👍👍

May 17th, we had been hiking in the Blue Mtns. Woke up in camp the morning of the 18th when we heard a huge rumble. Lacking a radio, we thought it was a big thunderstorm heading our way and decided to break camp and head back home to Moscow, Idaho. Traveling on the plateau south of Pullman, I'll never forget the wall of ash moving toward us from the west. Still lacking a radio, we thought that was the biggest storm cloud ever. As it got closer, we could see the front of the cloud, and could make out what looked like gray flour tumbling down the face of the cloud. about 4 or 5 miles out of Pullman, the front edge finally reached us. We got out of the truck and realized that the cloud was ash. We beat feet towards home, where it is was nighttime in the middle of the day. We were finally able to turn on the TV, but the news was pretty useless from an eastern Washington perspective. All the new programs were broadcasting views from Seattle and Portland and showing endless loops of the eruption. We had no idea how long the ashfall might last. We devised up a plan using two sheets of plywood. We were going to place them side by side, and by cleaning them, walk our way up the ash layer as it fell. Well, that didn't need to happen, as the ash fall subsided later that day. We later discovered that the ash wasn't that harmful to the engine of the truck, but it did create issues by working into the brake calipers and wheel bearings, causing them to freeze up.

Thanks! You covered some concepts that I have often wondered about. Nobody has explained the water mixing and lowering the melting point before. This was all very interesting. Thank you for explaining so many things in a way that an average person can understand. Really enjoy your random roadcut series also.

In December of 1979 there was a 5.0 quake about five miles northwest the mountain. On May 18th as the day went on there were lightning bolts of different colors going on in the plume. A ring of gas formed around the cone and then lowered to around the base. So you didn't want to be too close. It was later in the day when the mudflow washed into the Columbia River bringing a huge amount of logs.Yes it was quite a day seeing an ash plume eighty thousand straight up isn't something you would forget. Thank you Shawn!

I am obsessed with the Mt St Helens 80’s eruption! I could watch that mountain blow over and over! Amazing! Thank you for this video!

After watching the video, it brings back memories. I was so amazed by the lahar, destroying bridges, homes, carrying huge rocks, trees, and even cars away. I can also remember on a clear day in July, seeing the eruption clouds, and I lived 64 miles from the volcano..

Excellent video! Every time I’m in the PNW I go for a hike on St. Helens. It’s amazing how the forest on the mountain is returning to life.

Terrific presentation! I am a geology newbie (but an avid one!), and I learned SO much today!

I really appreciated this. I remember when the volcano blew. A few years later my mom was visiting the eruption site, and brought me back a very small container of the lava. I believe I still have it somewhere.

I was in grad school in Pullman, Wa. when it blew in '80. When we heard on the radio that St. Helens had blown we went outside and watched the ash cloud move toward us. It became pitch black and the strangest thing was how quiet it became. With all that ash in the air all sound was muffled or non existant. Pitch black and deathly silent is a strange feeling late in the afternoon. It was a mess for weeks after. Luckily we had some rain not too long after the ash fell and that settled things down a bit.

The 1980 eruption was what created my life long interest in volcanoes and earthquakes. I’m always glad to see updates on Mt St Helens and the recovery of the lands that were affected by the eruption. Thank you for this video update.

I've got a front row seat for whatever Mt St Helens does; I live in Vancouver, essentially blocks away from the Cascade Volcano Observatory (USGS) and 40 miles from the south flank. I moved to Idaho Falls in October 1980, mere months after the 1980 eruption; and by the time I arrived in I.F. there were still spots on the ground with a paper-thin layer of ash from that eruption. Not hard to imagine given the prevailing westerly winds at that time of year in the PNW. A bunch of folks, including me, have been curious as to why Mt St Helens sits a bit west of the general N-S line drawn by all the other volcanoes in the Cascades, and I recently read a paper that presented an interesting hypothesis (or theory, if they've been able to do an actual tomography from the area). St Helens is directly west of Mt Adams and about 25 miles west of the line of volcanoes following the subduction zone, and the current thinking is that there is a massive batholith sitting between Adams and St Helens, where the line of magma which is the source for both volcanoes is being deflected outward east and west to either side of the batholith. I'm onboard with that. It should also be noted that Mt St Helens is the youngest of at least the WA volcanoes and therefore can be counted on to continue erupting and rebuilding; in fact it should someday take on the shape Mt St Helens had prior to the 1980 eruption, by virtue of the continuous dome growth -- and the cycle is going to repeat for the next 2 million years before the magma shuts off and the mountain erodes away.

Excellent presentation! I was all the way on the other side of the state in Pullman, when I heard a muffled explosion in the morning which briefly caught my attention. At about noon that day there appeared to be a very large thunder cloud approaching Kamiak Butte where I was picnicking. Retreating from the top of the butte to the parking lot, ash, not rain, began to fall. People listening to their radios were yelling out that St Helens had blown. It was hard to believe, (there was no internet to consult) but in a short time it became obvious that something catastrophic had occurred. Cars heading back to Pullman formed a long eerie convoy, creeping through fine textured, roiling ash, headlights mostly useless, within an atmosphere that had become cave-like in its darkness though it was mid-day. Roads in and out of Pullman were soon closed to travel and Pullman became a little town of refuge within the plume of ash. I remember wondering whether the sun would shine again when morning came. Thankfully it did and a strange landscape of gray emerged; people with their faces protectively covered in scarves and bandanas, a small crew of firemen hosing down a street, a feeling of confusion and yet wonder. Then with the news coverage, shock at the massive destruction and the loss of lives. It was truly a memorable experience, still vivid now nearly 44 years later. Thank you for this fantastic video and the chronology of St Helens both before and after that fateful day of May 18, 1980.

I've been there several times for photo trips and just to be awed by the shear size of everything in person. Seeing the changes over the years is really remarkable. On one trip I took a helicopter tour which flew right up to the mouth of the crater on the north side. It made me feel like we were in a toy.

Ooo, ouch! “…parents or grandparents…” 😂 I lived in Eugene, OR in 1980, and we heard it go off (although when my baby sister exclaimed. “Oh! Mount St Helen’s!” I, as knowledgeable older brother, lectured about airplanes and sonic booms… I had to eat crow later. We didn’t get any ash from that eruption, but did once or twice with minor follow-on eruptions. We also looked nervously at the Three Sisters and other volcanoes just east of Eugene….

Hi Shawn, thanks for the great video! The illustrations combined with your storytelling it is really entertaining and makes learning more about volcanos even more fun. I have been to Iceland recently and made a tour to the Katla volcano. A presentation like this about Katla and the 1918 eruption, maybe including some geology about the ice caves that rise and fall there every season would also be very interesting - just in case you are looking for some more bullet points on your bucket list ;)

I lived in Western Colorado in 1980, over 1100 miles from Mt. St. Helens. The sunsets were incredibly reddish for about ten days, and I had ash on my car's windshield that required cleaning before I could drive it.

Thanks for a great video Shawn! I grew up in the PNW and my uncle and aunt were actually camping at a campground just south of St Helen’s when it blew! They hd no idea that it had erupted until they left the campground and weee driving out of the area and came upon a road block! They didn’t hear or see anything as the volcano was erupting! Just wild!

Thank you for this. I remember the 1980 eruption. It was a wonder to see happening and the effects it had on people and the environment.

Very good review, Professor! One of my favorite classes! 👍

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I was lucky enough to have climbed the North face in 1974. An eruption was not on the radar then. Awesome experience.

Great Video! I"ve been fascinated by volcanos since a kid. Mt. Lassen erupted long before I was born. But we studied it some in elementary school. And my family vacationed at Mt. Lassen park one year and visited all the areas around the peak. Then when St. Helens erupted in 1980, I was all eyes and ears. I have my own set of purchased 35mm slides, and several videos from the eruption era. I have to thank you for this video. It gives even more info, and explains what was going on, better than any news report at the time of the 1980 eruption. Many thanks!

I was 14 and I was fascinated by this whole event. I read every news article I could find. I had friends living in western Montana who had enough ashfall to make a huge mess of everything. It colored the sunsets for at least a year over the Great Salt Lake. It was amazing.

Sweeeeet... this is going to be a good one. Thanks, man. Cheers.

Shawn, I was a 5 year old in Australia & I still remember the impact of my Saint Helens.

Yeah... I was born in '71, I totally remember it...

Remember watching tv footage here in England when i was younger. Such power was amazing to be seen. Great video.

I grew up in Washington State in the cascades Stevens pass area and I loved visiting St. Helens with my grandfather. I was born in 81 It has always fascinated me. I always feared "the mountain"(Mt Rainer for non Seattleites) going instead of just showing. It was a miracle more human life wasn't lost. I drove past it in December 2004 when i moved to California. Seattle is a city built on a city on a city on a garbage dump, and someday it will add another layer of city.

Thanks for this, I've been a Mt St Helens junkie since it erupted...when I was a curious 5 year old in the UK. As a result I was determined to be a geologist, and now, with degree, masters and PhD in geology (okay, so not in volcanology, I kept being told that there were no jobs in the UK for volcanologists...) and have worked as a geologist for several decades. I've visited MSH twice, once in 2003 just before the major dome-building event, and again in 2008. While it may have erupted half a world away, I can honestly say that it was one of the major events to influence my life and career.

Thanks for that informative video. Living in CA we've often driven up the I-5 past Black Butte and Shasta. It's beautiful and you can see Mt. Shasta for miles and miles. I remember when Mt. St. Helens erupted--it was all over the news in S. Cal. Anyway, curious about Black Butte and if there's any activity related to that one, as it's close to Shasta (and there are little towns at the foot and surrounding area of Shasta, so I agree it would be devastating with an eruption).

Excellent overview! I lived then in Everett, other family lived in Vancouver, WA, with little effect. Family fishing at Jameson lk in Moses Coulee, lots of ash. The time-lapse photos are really cool. Thanks, Shawn!

Great video. I was 25 when the 1980 eruption occurred, living in South Carolina while in the Navy. I followed it as closely as I could under the circumstances, and it was a large part of the inspiration for me to major in geology when I later had the chance to use the G.I. Bill. I spent most of the rest of my career in giant pyroclastic regimes, so it was an inspiration well placed. With respect to the so-called "Toba bottleneck ", that hypothesis appeared in the 1990s, but by now has been well debunked, I'd say. Much of the perceived bottleneck was due to sampling bias, a huge oversampling of European DNA compared with that of African peoples. Considering that the population which left Africa around that same time period to become ancestral to modern Eurasians was quite small and not nearly as diverse as those remaining in Africa, the sampling bias becomes understandable. Also, studies of ecosystems from that time period show that the environmental effects in Africa and even India were far less than originally believed.

I did soil inventory around the Mount St. Helens area in 1978. Saw early warning signs of the pending eruption of 1980 in the field. Sulphur being deposited on andesite road cut bedrock. Climbed the mountain and saw venting steam just off of the summit. Soil with a hydrothermally altered volcanic parent material giving a soil temperature that was 20 degrees F. higher than what it should have been. And that pit was many miles north of the mountain.

Great presentation, Shawn. Thank you

Excellent brief history. Like the broader context and scale comparisons including human near extinction event. The super volcano west of Vesuvius is apparently a suspect or major player in demise of Neanderthals.

This is excellent - thank you so much. I would have loved it if you had mentioned geologist David Johnston, even if just briefly, so people could go look him up on their own if they are interested. He was so important in predicting what was going to happen in the 1980 eruption, and all these decades later my heart still breaks thinking about what happened to him.

I had begun my medical oncology fellowship in San Diego not long before the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. My brother was working for Intel or Techtronix near Portland at the time. Within a day or two, his grand piano was filled with ash. What a thing!

Was 7yrs old and will never forget. The news was SO sad & I just sat in front of the TV obsessed.

Thank you Professor Willsey 🙏

Instant love! I’ve been so close to getting to this majestic volcano but not yet made it. I remember being so fascinated by it as I was 7 when it erupted. My dad subscribed to National Geographic back then and I read that puppy cover to cover, and still have it now. It made me a geography fanatic for life!

Thank you for this. I grew up in Portland and saw Mt St Helens everyday from our kitchen window. Also, I went to Scout camp at Spirit Lake. A timely reminder of the power of Mother Nature we often just take for granted.

I was supposed to be camping up there that weekend, my dad (I was 4 at the time) wanted to go to a spot that was thought safeish but wasn’t. Thankfully, my little brother had an ear infection so we didn’t go up there or I most likely wouldn’t be here today. Edit: I don’t remember the first eruption, but I do remember several of the follow-up ‘burps’. One of my very first memories is sitting on my dad’s shoulders on a mountainside scenic view watching ash rise from it. You could also see it sometimes from near my house in Kent (I don’t know how far ‘near’ was, I was only 4!) and I remember asking why we could only see it during eruptions and getting, basically, “I dunno,” from my dad. As an adult I suspect we could see it when the weather was right but only noticed during eruptions.

One of your best presentations.

Hi Shawn, Happy New Years by the way. I actually remember the volcano going off. it was on the TV in the UK, I was still at school in 1980 i had two more year till moving on from school. At that time i think we were looking at the Rockies of North America. At that time i didn't even know that America or Canada for that mater had any volcanos. We did the ring of fire and we were asked to make a project talking about the volcanos we knew about so i did one on Krakatoa and its eruption in the mid to late 1800's I was the only one in the class that chose that volcano and the devastation that produced and it wasn't classed as a super volcano because we didn't know about the super volcanos till the early 2000's i believe. I got top marks for that project. I remember saying to my teacher i am going to move to North America some day and i told him i had never felt like i belonged in the UK. Of course i was mocked for that, by the rest of the class. Here i am living in North America, Canada to be more precise. I didn't know how many volcanos that were in Canada till just a few years ago, there are 49 Volcanos just in Canada most of them are dormant and are on the west coast moving into parts of Alberta. then you have the mountains further north in Alaska too which belongs to the USA. I have found this very enlightening and very informative on how some strato volcanos work some are not so easy to document than others but the Mount St Helens i remember because it was all on the news back in the UK because it was unusual to hear of volcanos in the USA going off at that time. Thank you so much for being one of my primary sources for geology on You Tube. I find now that i am in my late 50's i have a thirst for knowledge of all sorts. I am far from an expert and i don't plan on taking any courses but i know quite a bit now about volcanos earth quakes and the seismology and all that, Intrusions, subduction zones, the tectonic plates that are constantly moving. i find this subject fascinating. Till next time Professor. Take care, stay safe and God bless you.

I was lucky enough to climb MSH in 1971 in high school, and again in 200 and 2003… such a fun climb! Love your videos…

I don't live out west, but i have visited both St Helens and Rainier. We camped near Rainier and we thought it was the most beautiful mountain we ever saw and took lots of pictures. Mount St Helens, however, was just devastation everywhere ( this was in 1990 or so). The contrast between the two was incredible.

Thx Prof ✌🏻. Looking fwd to this. Much appreciated.

thank you....happy new year...

This mountain started me on my love of geology!!!

Thanks for the great presentation…. I’m becoming a geology junkie thanks to your podcasts.

Thank you for this!! Very interesting!

Absolutely fascinating. Geology was my minor in college and it's still a strong interest of mine. My late parents lived in. Western Washington and heard the massive explosion at a distance. All powerful Mother Nature! Thanks

This was a fantastic video. Really enjoyed it. A very good job.

Thank you for doing this! I'm obsessed with St Helens 😊

That hike looks fun!

TY for this recap. I was living in Montana during the 1980 eruption and will never forget the ash fall. It was like grey snow, but deadly! An amazing natural event to witness. (Love your teaching!)

spent 2 wks at spirit lake lodge in sept 79 , and the snow was melting , then in may it erupted and living in colorado had ash all over everything, but to go back after was shocking for sure. bought a puzzle that is a picture from the bench i sat in on the lodge porch. as we know the lodge is gone.

Great presentation Shawn, thank you !!

Yep, I remember we had great sunsets in the Eastern US for many months thereafter due to the ash in the atmosphere. This must have been a great time to be a geologist or student (I had a backpacker's casual interest in geology) ... the plate tectonics paradigm shift followed by this volcano demonstration.

This was really cool! Thanks Shawn for doing a video one of our local 🌋

Great presentation. Thank you for sharing your experience. Leslie❤

thank you for a very informative video, great explanations about what happened on MSH. ✅

Thank you Shawn. I live in Colorado and remember that the ash from the 1980 eruption caused the windshield and glass on my car to pit and had to be replaced.

Thanks! A nice educational look back! Thanks.

Very nice! Thank you!

Great presentation. Thanks!

Thanks for a great presentation. You’re an effective educator

I was living in Denver, CO at the time. This volcano was in the news from about early March. When it let off, we received a fine layer of ash on everything, but it wasn't much. I was saddened by the deaths of so many, especially after all the lead-time leading to the 1980 eruption. The eruption itself was spectacular.

We have family that live in Puyallup, WA. They lived through all that. I have a necklace with a piece of ash from the eruption in 1980. This was a really great presentation. I was young when this happened but I do remember my mother and grandparents talking about it. Super interesting.

I remember the blast , I was in high school and ash I believe got to the east coast of Virginia. Good education, you teach well .

Cool. Thanks for sharing.

Remember being in awe of this eruption while studying geography at university.

I find it very interesting that St. Helens has produced considerably more massive eruptions in the geologically recent past, prior to May 1980 -- and managed to reconstruct such a lovely edifice. I imagine we'll see more dome-building periods in most of our lifetimes.

Great presentation I saw it on the news in uk… a very spectacular eruption thank you 😊

Thank you for another great and interesting video. My aunt and uncle lived in Vancouver, WA at the time and they told some incredible stories. Shortly after, I received a package from them, I was 12 at the time, with a vile of ash. I cherished it for many years until it was lost in a fire....ironic. However, I still have the letters she wrote me at the time with all her updates. I can still remember seeing it on the news here in MN. Thanks, again!!

I was 16 when the 1980 eruption took place. I've been watching it and what's been happening ever since.

Living in Vancouver WA this was in our back yard so to speak. I loved your presentation and learned quite a lot. Thank you again for a great lesson!

I was 13 year old kid who happened to be in Northern Oregon in May 1980, watching the ash plume of the St. Helens eruption in the distance.

Nice presentation! What an adventure to climb this volcano! Thank you for sharing your pictures. Quite surprising there has been so little re-vegetation.

Really interesting, thank you so much

Fascinating! Living in Southern Oregon in 1980. It is memorable to this day. Surprised to see Spirit Lake still there - I mistakenly thought it was as ruined. Thanks for posting this! 👏🏻👏🏻 🌋

Very interesting informative thankyou enjoy your videos

Thanks so much! That was super interesting. It was the first ‘big world event’ I remember being on the news

A great presentation Shawn. I remember it well, a day before my 18th birthday. It was all over the news, even here in the UK. Thank you.👍🏼

Well done. What a story.

Thank you for a succinct, but info filled video about Mt. St Helens. I was living on San Juan Island. We had little to no ash even though we were only a few hundred miles as the crow flies. But heard three incredibly loud blasts.

I was 10 yrs old living just south of Portland in a little town called Silverton. I remember going to Portland early that morning so my mom and aunts could go shopping. I was, for the first and only time, ice skating when my mom asked if I wanted to go see a volcano. What 10 year old would say no to that? We drove in to Washington a bit and I'll never forget that sight. The plume was unimaginably high. The ash rolling like a massive storm cloud billowing in the air. And the lightning! Oh wow, the colors, and amount was amazing. I also remember later that summer flying in to Portland and the plane following the Columbia. That was a devastating site to see. You could tell how clogged with ash and trees it had become.

This was really interesting. I'm in Wisconsin and I remember the sky being orange-ish from the eruption.

Does anyone know roughly how many times Mt Hood has erupted since conception? Nobody would truly know but I live on Mt. Hood and think about it often. Thanks

Two of my friends and I were climbing Mt Adams that morning. We were at about 11500 feet on Mt Adams when St Helen’s blew up. We didn’t know what to do. But we ended up being totally safe