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Mount St. Helens Revisited

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Mount St. Helens prior to the eruption of May 18, 1980 was 9,677 feet tall at its peak. This made it only the fifth largest peak in Washington. The top of the mountain rises 5,000 feet above its base. At its base it is 6 miles across, and the pre-eruption timberline was 4 miles around.

Mount St. Helens is located in Skamania County, but the best access is through Cowlitz County. Longview and Kelso Washington are known as the “gateway to Mount St. Helens“. The closest community to Mount St. Helens is Cougar which is 11 miles form the peak. The forest surrounding Mount St. Helens is the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

George Vancouver has the distinction of being the first European to document seeing Mount St. Helens on May 19, 1792. At that time he was charting the area of Puget Sound. Mount St. Helens was not officially named until October 20, 1792 when he saw it as his ship was passing the mouth of the Columbia River.

The Lewis and Clark expedition later saw Mount St. Helens when they came up the Columbia River in 1805 and 1806. There descriptions of the conditions of the Sandy river, which is near Portland Oregon, suggested that it had recently erupted. Later documentation suggests that Mount St. Helens erupted in 1800.

Mount St. Helens is a young Volcano by mountain standards, developing only 40,000 years ago. Streams that getting their start end up in the Columbia River via three major rivers that drain the valleys surrounding Mount St. Helens. The three rivers are the Toutle River, the Kalama River, and the Lewis River. Mount St. Helens receives a average of 140 inches of water comprised of rain and snow in a year.

Mount St. Helens Eruption History

Mount St. Helens is a potentially very active and quite dangerous volcano. During the last 500 years or so it has had 4 major eruptions, and numerous eruptions of lesser proportions. Two of the major eruptions  only spanned two years apart. One of the largest documented eruptions of Mount St. Helens was in 1480 A.D. when it erupted with a force 5 times greater than the eruption of May 18, 1980.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens came as no surprise as it is the most active volcano in the Cascade Mountain Range. It has been studied more closely and thoroughly than any volcano on earth. Its oldest known eruption deposits have been found to be over 50,000 years old and has has a intermittently active life since.

Mount St. Helens May 18th, 1980 Eruption

The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was preceded by over two months of activity that was signified by more than 10,000 earthquakes. Hundreds of small steam emissions were recorded. What is better known as the north bulge  continued to grow. What triggered the eruption of Mount St. Helens is a earthquake of 5.1 magnitude. Within seconds of the earthquake, the largest landslide in recorded history took place. The entire north flank bulge slid down the mountain. Temperatures in side the blast reached 300 degrees Celsius. Minutes later the plume reached 19 kilometers in the sky, being carried across much of the western United States.

There is a lot to do while visiting Mount St. Helens, from simply taking a turn out to view the Mountain to hiking and biking. Please view the links below, as it is terrific reading, and very informative. Tourism is very active on the mountain, and the surrounding area around Longview Washington.

 Some of the activities you may find entertaining and is available on or around Mount St. Helens are:

 

 

 

 

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