| Mount St. Helens | |
 | The president and congress made the 110,000 acre monument for research, recreation, and education after it erupted. The mountain was 9,677 feet before the eruption and 8,364 feet afterward. The base of the volcano is six miles. Mount St. Helens is forty thousand years old, which is young for a volcano. Now days, the volcano just has a huge amount of steam coming out. |
| The volcano erupted on May 18, 1980 on a Sunday morning. The eruption lasted about nine hours. It was caused by a 5.1 earthquake underneath the mountain. Ash fell over eastern Washington and areas up to three hundred miles away from the mountain. Some ash became an ash cloud, circled the earth for 15 days, and might stay in the atmosphere for many years. Fifty-seven people were killed by the monstrous volcano. |  |
 | The volcano was named after the British diplomat, Alleyne Fitzerbert. Her title was Baron St. Helens. She lived from 1753 to 1839. |
| To the Pacific Northwest Native Americans the mountain is know as Louwala-Clough or Loo-Wit Lat-kla which means smoking mountain and fire mountain. The Indian legend for Mount St. Helens is that a female spirit called St. Helens tried to make peace between two sons of the great spirit that fought over her. Mount Adam and Mount Hood were the two sons. They through fiery rocks at each other, which made earthquakes. The fight destroyed the Bridge of the gods that crossed the Columbia River. | |
6 comments:
I remember this weekend well, as about 20 of us were all celebating my birthday weekend & on the Sunday morning we heard this incredible blast,we all had ideas as to what it was,perhaps Naval Exercises off the coast,or blasting somewhere on the island.Little did we suspect a Volcanic Eruption ,in our neighbour to the south Washington State...and considering we were at a place up the coast mid-island Vancouver Island near the beginning of the West coast Trail in Pachena Bay (near Bamfield BC) .This is a long way from the Mountain,and ash reinged down even closer to home in Victoria BC.....
This was in Winston backyard almost,in near Vancouver Washington...
Neat experience but strange how quickly 30 years have passed.......
There was a neat old guy named Harry Truman who owned a lodge at Spirit Lake and he said he would not evacuate the mountain ,it was his home & he wasn't going....Well old Harry is buried under 100's of tons of rock & debris and his Spirit Lake just disappeared: Cheers Harry you had balls...HF&RV
Here are a couple of youtube videos about the Mountain:
.......This video is about Harry Truman & Spirit Lake:
http://www.sciencewithmrmilstid.com/media/ess05_int_helens.swf
Les. This is my backyard. I can see the mountain every day. Most of the time the snow is a beautiful white. People still go up their to hike and enjoy a place that has lost most of it beauty. Things have grown back, but will still take decades for it to even look a little like it did before the eruptions. Billie and I were married in September of 1979, just four months after the big event. For years after, we were still trying to wash away all the volcanic junk the kept clinging to every thing. Thank heaven it erupted and blew half the mountain to the north. If it had gone the other way, south, there would have been a lot more people killed. I would guss 10's of thousands.
Yikes ! Your lucky Winston.
We used to post the live webcam occasionaly on the old Verdun Connections, so here is one of the links:
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/views/java-classic.php
Keep in mind that a live webcam does get affested by nightfall...............hahahaha so if you want to look at the mountain & it's a beautiful mountain,you will have to do it during daylight hours on the Westcoast......
.....................................HF&RV
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