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Has it really been 40 years? MSH May18 1980

Six weeks after it blew our 14 year old son and I took my Yamaha XS7502D from Ames, Iowa and headed off to see the volcano. We had a good trip. When we arrived in Yakima, a few hundred miles to the east they were still plowing ash with snow plows. We slept on picnic tables At the Willows Campground on the south side of US12 in the Snoqualimie National Forest where the wind had cleared the tables but left inches of ash on the ground. We watched the log jams at Toutle and collected course sand upwind to go with the very fine ash we had collected downwind at Yakima. It was an epic two or so week trip.

Later I often wondered why the engine in that motorcycle was pretty much junk at 42,000 miles. Then I had a long conversation with my friend David Hough (Proficient Motorcycling, More Proficient Motorcycling, Street Strategies and more) about a Boeing study of the affect of volcanic ash on aircraft engines. That explained fully why the rings, cylinders, and other parts were prematurely worn on that poor motorcycle. I had taken no precautions whatsoever about the ash. We just took off on a great father-son adventure.
 
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Wow it doesn't seem like that long ago.
The first time out there we could not get close enough to see it.
We went back in 2003 and rode in from the east.

P8280074.JPG

P8280077.JPG


Trees in the lake
P8280076.JPG
 
In 1983 I was TDY at FT Lewis, WA for the summer. They had just started letting people in to view the damage in convoys led by a Forrest Service Ranger; I was surprised they let me in on my R100RS. We went up on a promitory that was just at the edge of the blow down area. I recall being in awe seeing a bazillion trees all blown down and pointed at us with the mountain behind them.
 
akbeemer said:
In 1983 I was TDY at FT Lewis, WA for the summer. They had just started letting people in to view the damage in convoys led by a Forrest Service Ranger; I was surprised they let me in on my R100RS. We went up on a promitory that was just at the edge of the blow down area. I recall being in awe seeing a bazillion trees all blown down and pointed at us with the mountain behind them.
Click to expand...

We were out there in 1983 but locals said we would not be able to get close enough to see anything.
Sounds like we should have tried.
 
I was flying Cessna out of Redding that morning on a sightseeing trip. Still remember the potential eruption in the news and thinking about it while peering north from the vicinity of Mt Shasta. I remember that it looked dark, like a storm front, but couldn't discern the eruption. Then after landing and finding out that it had erupted, wished we had wandered further north to take a look. Certainly for those of us in the west, a moment that everyone remembers where they were.
 
Was there way after the fact. I was amazed at the scope of the damage as I read reports and watched the news. Two facts that amazed me were-

The ash/dust was feet thick and prevented anything with a regular air filter from running very long.
And-
24 megatons
Helens released 24 megatons of thermal energy, 7 of which was a direct result of the blast. This is equivalent to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima" (U.S. Geological Survey). But Mount St. Helens wasn't even at the top of the scale of Volcanic Explosivity Index.
OM
 
powwow said:
It was quite the beautiful mountain before the eruption, often compared in beauty to Mt. Fuji.


View attachment 78662
Click to expand...

That shot compared to the previous pic with H still is hard to believe how much earth was moved. The ash gray water still is running in the rivers and the lakes full of debris which are stunning to realize how many full size trees are still and for decades to come stacked up.

Was cool to see progression of replanting efforts with signage of when they were planted along the parkway.The scale is just so massive.
 
We were in the Flathead Valley that day and heading back to the Izaac Walton Inn in Essex, that evening, saw what looked to be a wall of Cumulonimbus behind us.

The next morning there was a fine layer of ash on everything and the air was thick with it. On the drive back to Canada we didn't get out of the ash until we were north of the border.

I wish I could find the picture I took in the parking lot.
 
I was there. At least in the vicinity and saw it erupt. I was stationed at Fort Lewis at the time and we (wife and I and two small kids) lived across the Narrows Bridge in Gig Harbor. It was Sunday morning and we were visiting a friend who lived on Fox Island near Gig Harbor. The friend's property was beachfront and we were sitting on a blanket watching the kids wade and splash in the waters of The Puget Sound. The mountain had been rumbling and burping and spitting up for several weeks so we were well aware of the impending eruption. When the mushroom cloud began building to the east we knew immediately what it was. it was fascinating to see the cloud develop and keep building higher and higher. The prevailing wind blew almost everything away from us on the Olympic Peninsula, but we did get some fine ash on everything for a week or so afterwards. Later that summer we made a car trip across Washington from Gig Harbor to Oklahoma and saw all the ash-covered fields and crops. Amazing.
 
I was just 16 when the eruption occurred, growing up in far Northern Maine. It was an amazing thing to see on the television, several days after the explosion we woke to find a very fine dust on the family car, deposited by the prevailing winds. I've had that area on my "to see" list for some time I was amazed by how fast reforestation has occurred.
 
My grandparents were from the Spokane area before moving to Canada as a young couple and family. Grandma's large family had spread out over much of Washington state by 1980 and I recall her showing us all the small jars of ash that each of her siblings had gathered. Those who were quite close to the eruption had ash like coarse sand while the further away they lived it was progressively finer becoming like powder. I aslo recall the photos they shared of the ash covering their homes and vehicles. Quite an event in modern history.
 
royce said:
I was there. At least in the vicinity and saw it erupt. I was stationed at Fort Lewis at the time and we (wife and I and two small kids) lived across the Narrows Bridge in Gig Harbor. It was Sunday morning and we were visiting a friend who lived on Fox Island near Gig Harbor. The friend's property was beachfront and we were sitting on a blanket watching the kids wade and splash in the waters of The Puget Sound. The mountain had been rumbling and burping and spitting up for several weeks so we were well aware of the impending eruption. When the mushroom cloud began building to the east we knew immediately what it was. it was fascinating to see the cloud develop and keep building higher and higher. The prevailing wind blew almost everything away from us on the Olympic Peninsula, but we did get some fine ash on everything for a week or so afterwards. Later that summer we made a car trip across Washington from Gig Harbor to Oklahoma and saw all the ash-covered fields and crops. Amazing.
Click to expand...

Sometimes we would drive to a view point 25miles south of the mountain to see it on many minor eruptions. We did this only when the ash was blowing away from us.
Back in the late '60 we would take truck inner tubes and go sledding at the vehicle round -about. Waist deep snow. Good old times!
 
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