Tuesday, August 25: May 18, 1980 … just a little over 35 years ago … was the day that a major volcanic eruption occurred on Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington. An earthquake that morning caused the entire weakened north face of the mountain to slide away, creating the largest landslide ever recorded. An eruption column rose 15 miles into the atmosphere and deposited ash in 11 states.

We visited the mountain today. We drove across the “Bridge of the Gods” crossing the Columbia River and north up to Mt. St. Helens. We stopped at a scenic turnout for a coffee break on the way with a wonderful view of the mountain in the distance.

Once we arrived at the Mt. St. Helens area we realized we were not coming at the mountain in the direction we really wanted to so we drove west to I-5 and north to the Silver Lake Visitor Center. We watched a movie and viewed the exhibits at the Visitor Center, taking us back in time to the 80’s and giving a great overview of the events leading up to the May 18, 1980 eruption of the mountain.

From there we drove up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory with several stops along the way at scenic turnouts with great views of the mountain.

The Observatory viewing deck gave us a wonderful view of the massive crater on the north side of the mountain.

We could also see some of the famous Spirit Lake that was so dramatically changed by the eruption of the mountain. Mt. Adams at 12, 276’ was also visible to the east. A park ranger was giving a review of the events of that fateful day that took the lives of 57 people from the perspective of several eye witnesses who survived the event.

We stayed until the setting sun was lighting up the mountain side and then drove back almost 2 hours to our campsite back in Oregon. We had not planned to be gone quite that long and we very tired when we got back a little after 9:00 PM but it was a very interesting day and the views of the mountain were worth the effort.