Chicago tribune

Volcano at work

In a building project that could take eons, Mt. St. Helens giveth what she once blew away

By Robert Cross
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 4, 2005

MT. ST. HELENS, Wash. -- This story contains corrected material, published Dec. 6, 2005.

The first sighting from Washington Highway 504 tells the story in an instant. Round a bend and there, suddenly, a major star of the Cascade Range appears, a standout mountain poking through a gray blanket of foothills in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest: Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

It's certainly majestic--yet menacing, too, once you become familiar with the background.

From the mountain, fluffy clouds climb slowly toward the sky, emanating from a circular, snow-brushed grin. Mt. St. Helens smiles down on us, puffing smoke as if enjoying an invisible cigar.

Those who know the past history--and who doesn't?--realize the damage that this volcano can do. The most recent example would, of course, be the violent eruption of May 18, 1980. At 8:32 a.m. to be precise.

In mid-October on the veranda of the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center, U.S. Forest Service ranger Mike Byers held up a photograph for a bunch of tour bus passengers, RV wanderers and high school field-trippers. It was a picture of a cliche mountain, the stuff of cartoons and the Paramount logo--cone-shaped, snow-capped, symmetrical, 9,677 feet tall.

"That picture was taken at 8:27 a.m., May 18, 1980," Byers said. Five minutes later, the mountain blew and immediately became an imperfect structure with a crater on its side, a cone deflated and distorted by the terrible forces deep within the Earth.

It spewed dense clouds of ash and flying boulders, shredding trees, killing 57 people and untold wildlife (including an estimated 1,500 elk), stripping soil down to bare rock and filling valleys with debris as far away as 14 miles--the largest landslide in recorded history. Further convulsions, less severe, occurred over the next few months. And Mt. St. Helens had lost more than 1,300 feet off its top. Various sources reckon the current height at 8,363 to 8,365 feet.

The day I first went there this October was remarkably clear, and Byers' audience could plainly see the results of the 1980s blast: that hole in the side, big Coldwater Lake down below. "Before 1980, it was called Coldwater Creek," Byers remarked. "That's the impact the landslide had. It filled in this valley with 200 to 300 feet of debris, blocked some of the side valleys, changed the whole landscape"

But his point was that the horrific explosion came without some sort of precursor; nothing about it set off an alarm. There had been episodes of rumbling and minor earthquakes over the years, but they had led to nothing. That sort of thing was also occurring in the spring of 1980, but without any outward signs of a huge volcanic buildup.

"In the two months before May 18, 1980, we had about 10,000 earthquakes. By the end of March we had craters opening up on the summit, we had steam and ash coming out of the summit," Byers said.

"In 1980 that area where we see that big hole on the north side, that area started growing outwards, bulging outwards--toward the north and toward the sky at about five feet a day. It was kind of strange, sort of like the world's largest pimple."

But even that wasn't considered a sign of what would follow.

Suddenly, on May 18, the pimple collapsed and havoc ensued. "Liquid rock from inside the Earth--magma--had been trying to get out," Byers said. "It found a mountain in the way and actually started pushing up and breaking that mountain apart, five feet a day."

I returned to the mountain about a week after my visit to the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center, and this time I headed directly for the Johnston Ridge Observatory. St. Helens had changed considerably. Now snow covered most of the peak, and clouds obscured the pinnacle. Its plume of vapors remained visible, however, and enormous developments were going on inside that massive crater formed in 1980.

A sign at the observatory entrance showed a sketch of Mt. St. Helens rendered crudely in crayon. "Get your fresh lava," said the sign. "Local organic lava, one dump truck of lava every three seconds."

Mt. St. Helens started throwing out lava again in October of last year, but not very far, as things turned out. Back then, the headlines sounded dire. "Ready to blow," said The Tribune on Oct. 4, 2004, and, a week later, "Quakes shake peak, but no eruption yet."

For the past year, it has been burping magma and slowly rebuilding the portion of St. Helens that the 1980 event wiped out. In 100 to 150 years or so, it might be cone-shaped again if the magma doesn't get out of hand.

Officials at the Johnston Ridge Observatory believe that another major cataclysm won't catch them by surprise this time. They have faith that their monitoring systems are far more sophisticated than they were 25 years ago. Even so, employees tend to look at the seismograph each morning before they pour their coffee.

Not to worry, said ranger Pamela McCray, "even though it's erupting something like a Honda Civic every second and a half."

Another Johnston Ridge Observatory ranger, Holly Weiss, showed a gathering of visitors a seismograph printout with just a few squiggly lines. "Last year, on a usual day, we had one earthquake," she said. Most of those squiggles on the printout were minor disturbances like helicopter vibrations, falling rocks or the occasional elk using a monitor to scratch herself.

Then, through September '04, the earthquakes became more frequent, until the squiggles covered nearly the entire printout. Word soon spread that Mt. St. Helens was spouting again.

"Every news truck from here to Germany showed up in the parking lot," Weiss remembered. "We called it Satellite City. They completely filled the lot with those trucks, trying to tell people what was going on.

"Everybody was concerned about the mountain exploding, so what do you think the people do? They come on too. The entire road up here last September was completely lined with cars.

"Then the seismograph started looking like this (even more alarming squiggles). We started having harmonic tremors moving up inside that [volcanic] chamber. That's when we decided to evacuate, get everyone back. Because we didn't know if it was explosive magma or not. If explosive, it could travel 2 miles, 5 miles, we just don't know. So we moved everyone to Coldwater Ridge, which is about 7 miles away, where here we're only 5 1/2.

"What actually was happening is that we were having another lava-building event, one of those events that build our mountain back."

For those of us who might be tempted to revisit during a really big rumble, rangers quickly trot out facts and figures to point out what sort of geological hell we'd encounter.

On May 18, 1980, the ash-filled plume rose 15 miles into the air, and traces of ash circled the globe. Some 230 square miles of land and timber were destroyed within a period of three minutes. The temperature of the landslide reached 1,000 degrees, more than enough to bake all trees and other vegetation to death. They didn't catch fire, because fire needs oxygen, and the oxygen had been displaced by ashes, rock, melting-glacier mudslides and debris.

Speaking of debris, that was 3 billion cubic yards' worth. Imagine a box with its bottom the size of a football field. To hold all the landslide material, the box would have to be 600 miles high. The ashes turned Yakima and other central and eastern Washington cities--as dark as night; the streetlights came on (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Nearer communities were ankle-deep in dust, or worse.

A film in the Johnston Ridge Observatory auditorium would further emphasize the trauma. Brave cinematographers made the landslide look as if it would bury us in our seats. The explosion resembled an atomic bomb mushroom cloud. We heard the words of witnesses telling of the devastation they had managed to survive.

One who didn't survive was David Johnston, a young U.S. Geological Survey scientist. He was filling in for a co-worker at an observation post about 5 1/2 miles from the mountain. Several weeks earlier, Johnston had predicted that, some day, an eruption would blow out the side of Mt. St. Helens, rather than shoot from the top, as some colleagues believed.

The morning of May 18, 1980, Johnston was stationed on the ridge that now bears his name. It took only seven seconds after the eruption for the landslide to reach his vantage point, and Johnston perished there.

"He was doing his job. He really didn't want to be here," ranger McCray told a group of visitors.

"I almost didn't make it through the end of my talk," McCray said to me later. "I started crying."

After the film and its footage of the mushroom cloud, flying debris, flattened trees, choked rivers and dust-coated everything, the lights went up, the screen ascended and the wide row of red curtains behind the screen suddenly parted.

And there was the real Mt. St. Helens, framed in an immense picture window, seemingly close enough to touch. Some people in the audience gasped. I cringed.

Most of what we see in the Cascade Range--volcanic as much of it is--has remained the same over centuries. In the Rockies, the western canyonlands and other geologically eventful areas, we see the effects of tectonic ripples, uplift and erosion. Those processes are almost unfathomably slow. It took eons to make the scenery we see now.

A fresh volcano shows the work in progress, forming a new Hawaiian island in the case of Kilauea, or radically rearranging the forest's furniture as Mt. St. Helens did in just a few days 25 years ago.

The story told now at Mt. St. Helens is one of regrowth.

Besides that dome rebuilding, much of the vegetation has returned. Elk herds that ventured back to the scene carried on their hooves the seeds for new vegetation. Their hooves also dug out the little indentations that made it easy for the plants to grow.

The elk feasted on fireweed and other plants but shunned the alders with a collective "ugh," so alders flourish in parts of the national forest that the landslide had left barren.

All sorts of plants grow near Mt. St. Helens now, and the area is populated with all kinds of Northwest Pacific wildlife--from bears to rodents, spiders to hawks.

A floor-to-ceiling display case at the Johnston Ridge Observatory caught my attention as I roamed through its well-designed interpretive displays. In the case were a cluster of visitors, sculpted in detail down to backpacks and binoculars and painted white.

Before them stood an animatronic forest ranger in full uniform, including that Smokey Bear hat they all wear. When I stood near the glass, the ranger began talking, telling her audience about the plant life, answering their questions about what kind of flower is this and what kind of tree is that. She blinked her eyes and moved them from side to side. She smiled and opened and closed her lips as she urged the visitors to "leave behind nothing but footprints."

I shuddered to think what if the ranger profession eventually was replaced by an army of lifelike robots like the one in the glass case. Perhaps they'd be installed on our public lands as a further cost-cutting measure, I imagined, or to silence inconvenient rank-and-file objections to the commercialization of national parks, or the rampant exploitation of pristine wilderness.

That speculation probably crept into my mind because I so enjoyed meeting the human rangers at Mt. St. Helens. The big event there happened when most of them were infants, perhaps before some of them were born. And yet they brought it to life with an eagerness to share, a clarity of vision, empathy for the victims and a sense of humor about the present state of things. Hondas and dump trucks indeed.

As she was leaving the observatory, a woman turned to ranger Pamela McCray and said, "Thank you. It's not at all what we imagined."

I felt exactly the same way.

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IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

Portland, Ore., and Seattle are the closest major cities, and a day trip to Mt. St. Helens is possible from either one. In any case, Interstate Highway 5 starts the ball rolling. The two major visitor centers and observation points can be reached by exiting the interstate at eastbound Washington Highway 504 and driving about 40 miles.

Eastbound U.S. Highway 12 passes near the northern border of the national volcanic monument and leads to roads that access eastern and southern areas. Those latter roads usually close in winter.

Washington Highway 503 approaches Mt. St. Helens from the south and ends at the junction of two Forest Service roads. Those, too, may be snowbound in winter.

GETTING AROUND

The possibilities are somewhat limited this time of year. Because of recent volcanic activity, no one is allowed to climb the mountain. Trails around the monument may be closed for the same reason or because snow makes hiking too risky.

In the warm months, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which surrounds and includes the monument, offers opportunities for horseback riders, swimmers, boaters and hikers. Miles of trails weave all around the area.

FOOD AND LODGING

Nearby towns, notably Castle Rock, have motels and cabins. Restaurants in the area fail to make the cover of Bon Appetit, but visitors won't go hungry. The cafe at the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center also serves grub.

Campers will find 10 designated areas with 8 to 98 sites each. Backcountry campers are welcome when conditions permit.

FEES

The national forest charges visitors 16 and older $3 at each visitor center, or $6 for both. It also honors Golden Eagle, Golden Access and Golden Age cards.

ACCESSIBILITY

Visitor centers and most of the highway viewpoints are barrier-free, as well as Iron Creek campground, Lava Canyon and Pine Creek information station.

INFORMATION

Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument headquarters: 360-449-7800; www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/mshnvm

-- Robert Cross

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The main sights

1. Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center

The veranda offers a foursquare look at Mt. St. Helens. Inside, a wealth of interactive exhibits explains the workings of a volcano. A cafeteria serves up everything from designer coffee to full meals. "Off the scale savings in the blast zone!" says a sign inside. Next door, a concessionaire sells a wide variety of souvenirs, including samples of ash collected outside the national forest.

2. Johnston Ridge Observatory Visitor Center

Why have two visitor centers (not counting a state-run interpretive center 38 miles from Coldwater Ridge)? Because this one brings visitors even closer to the mountain. Enthusiastic rangers tell the tale of the big 1980 eruption, and clever displays fill in the blanks. Note: The observatory closes from late October until early May.

3. Windy Ridge and Spirit Lake viewpoints

To get here requires a long drive on regional highways, but these and a few other viewpoints along the way show the dead trees and Spirit Lake's island of logs blasted down in 1980. Wiped out forest can't be seen from visitor centers on the other side of Mt. St. Helens, because loggers had clear-cut everything on the north side long before the eruption.

4. Lava Canyon and lahar

The 1980s blast also sent slurries of mud (lahar), knocking down trees with a material something like wet concrete and laying bare ancient lava deposits from long-ago eruptions. A pedestrian bridge spans the canyon--black with lava but brightened by a rushing river and waterfalls.

5. Ape Cave

Around 2,000 years ago, flowing lava formed a tube, the lower part of which is easy to explore and the upper part more difficult. In summer, a small bookstore stocks background reading and rents out lanterns. It's closed in winter, however. Between June and Labor Day, guides lead tours and explain why it's called Ape Cave. Hint: An outdoors-loving group in the area was called the St. Helens Apes.

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bcross@tribune.com

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