We drove up to Mt St Helens today as a side trip from a gathering of folks who have the same brand of motor home as ours. The weather was perfect for the trip.
Like much of what we saw on our recent trip through the southwest, the scale of what happened and the resulting destruction is hard to convey in a photograph but we will try.
The picture below is best viewed by clicking on it to enlarge. The Toutle River enters the picture in the lower left corner. It is a good sized river but hardly noticable in this photo. All the rest you can see that looks like river bed is actually ash and mud flow left over from the eruption over 30 years ago.
Below you can see the Toutle River as it winds its way through the mud flow. The mountain is in the background.
In the picture below the mud flow and ash averages 150 feet thick - and yes
that is still the Toutle River running through it. This is just below the crator.
...and here is the crator as it looks today with it's slowly rebuilding dome. This is taken from the Johnston Observatory.
