On our last day of adventure we rode up into the mountains to see Mount Saint Helens. WOW! Seeing it blew me away. Mount Saint Helens used to be a beautiful domed mountain peak. In their journals Lewis and Clark referred to it as the most beautiful mountain they had seen on their journey. On May 2, 1980, Mount Saint Helens exploded in the biggest volcanic explosion in American history. A mile of the mountain top just blew off causing a massive landslide. In the blast zone everything was blown away, leaving nothing but a barren, devastated landscape. Two-hundred and thirty miles were leveled in moments, just as though an atomic bomb had been dropped. The ash and debris spread around the world.
We viewed the mountain from six miles away, where the scientists who were monitoring for a possible eruption were killed instantly. When the mountain exploded everything on that spot was destroyed and became part of the ash and rock spreading across the land. It has been more than thirty years since the eruption. It was interesting to see how nature is healing it's wounds. In the field where lava flowed flowers now grow around the seismic monitors that still measure the tremors in the ground.
We took one more look at the mountain as we drove away, then, with our minds full of the memory of our western adventure, we turned our hearts toward home.
3 comments:
Is there snow there even in summer - thats amazing...we have trouble drumming up snow even in winter down here
Amazing! I loe every picture and story to go with it, about yout trip. Mt St Helens, I remember seeing the movie about that at the drive in cinemas when I was a teen. Scary stuff hehe
Wow, you've made me interested in what it used to look like. Will google that next. :) I have some ash from the explosion brought home to us in a little film canister by a friend. My kids like sticking their fingers in it. (Okay, I do too!)
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