Windy Ridge at Mount St. Helens
Aug. 12th, 2022 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerOn Friday afternoon (a week ago now) we visited Mount St. Helens. It's a volcano in the US state of Washington that erupted in 1980. It was the most destructive eruption in US history, killing 57 people and flattening everything for miles. Likely the death toll would have been higher except that a series of small eruptions occurred from March that year. With two months warning all but scientists and fools evacuated.
Today Mount St. Helens is a national monument, a designation given by the president in 1982. And the volcano is still active, though at only a fraction of the energy level of 1980. We drove into the area from the northeast side, driving one of the park roads to its terminus at Windy Ridge, about 5 miles from the crater.
As we drove along mountain ridges to this point we saw the devastation wrought 42 years ago. Huge trees, easily 6' diameter and originally 200' tall, were stripped to their trunks and snapped like toothpicks. The land for miles around was scoured bare. To the extent you see natural growth in the photo above, it's all new growth. The land was scraped bare 8 miles out to the north of the volcano (it exploded on its north side) by rocks and hot gases traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. Significant damage extended out to 23 miles.
Windy Ridge is not the visitor-friendly side of the park. Over on the northwest side there's the Johnston Ridge Observatory, with a visitors center and all. Windy Ridge is out in booger country and all that's here is... well, Windy Ridge.
What's Windy Ridge? It's the mountain behind you when you look at Mount St. Helens in the first picture. Climb that ridge, the proposition goes, and you'll have an amazing view of not just the volcano but 360° around. There are even stairs to the top of the ridge. It's easy!
...Well, it's not easy, but I'm going up. I didn't fly and drive all the way out here not to climb the damn stairs. Stay tuned for more.
Update: 439. It is 439 stairs to to the top. I know because I climbed them (and counted). Click the link to keep reading!
Today Mount St. Helens is a national monument, a designation given by the president in 1982. And the volcano is still active, though at only a fraction of the energy level of 1980. We drove into the area from the northeast side, driving one of the park roads to its terminus at Windy Ridge, about 5 miles from the crater.
As we drove along mountain ridges to this point we saw the devastation wrought 42 years ago. Huge trees, easily 6' diameter and originally 200' tall, were stripped to their trunks and snapped like toothpicks. The land for miles around was scoured bare. To the extent you see natural growth in the photo above, it's all new growth. The land was scraped bare 8 miles out to the north of the volcano (it exploded on its north side) by rocks and hot gases traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. Significant damage extended out to 23 miles.
Windy Ridge is not the visitor-friendly side of the park. Over on the northwest side there's the Johnston Ridge Observatory, with a visitors center and all. Windy Ridge is out in booger country and all that's here is... well, Windy Ridge.
What's Windy Ridge? It's the mountain behind you when you look at Mount St. Helens in the first picture. Climb that ridge, the proposition goes, and you'll have an amazing view of not just the volcano but 360° around. There are even stairs to the top of the ridge. It's easy!
...Well, it's not easy, but I'm going up. I didn't fly and drive all the way out here not to climb the damn stairs. Stay tuned for more.
Update: 439. It is 439 stairs to to the top. I know because I climbed them (and counted). Click the link to keep reading!
