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At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted.
Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.
In 1982 the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.
Blowndown forest protected by snow near Meta Lake. Snow protected Pacific silver fir and mountain hemlock trees near Meta Lake three years after the eruption. Re-sprouting shrubs are also visible.
Ape Cave is one of the longest lava tubes in the lower 48 states. It is located just off Forest Road 83 on the south side of the volcano.
[J. Nieland, USDA Forest Service, 1979]
Before & After the Eruption
This photo page contains thumbnails (small images) with captions. If you double-click on the thumbnail image, a larger view of the photograph will load.
Higher resolution images suitable for desk-top publishing and use in other imaging programs are also available for downloading. At the end of each caption is the link for the higher resolution image. Conditions for use of Photographic Images
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 2 - Before the 1980 eruption the Spirit Lake basin was cloaked in old-growth forest. The signboard marks a vegetation plot, one of only a few places where the Forest Service had recorded the composition of pre-eruption vegetation at an individual species level.
[USDA Forest Service, 1979]
[Hi-Res Photo 286KB] |
 3 All traces of the pre-eruption forest were erased by the fiery pyroclastic flows (1300 deg F, 700 deg C) that flowed from the crater that same afternoon. The signboard marks same the same location as pre-eruption photo.
[USDA Forest Service, 1980]
[Hi-Res Photo 101KB]
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 6 Before the eruption the ridges north of the volcano were shrouded in old-growth Pacific silver fir and mountain hemlock forests. The forest in this photo is growing on the site of the now popular Windy Ridge viewpoint, four miles (6 km) northeast of the volcano. The signboard marks a vegetation plot, one of only a few places where the composition of pre-eruption vegetation was recorded at an individual species level.
[M. Hemstrom, USDA Forest Service, 1979]
[Hi-Res Photo 142KB] |
 7 A repeat photo of the same location shows the scouring effects of the 300 mph, stone-filled blast that not only toppled the trees but also ripped them from the ground (blast direction is from left to right). The blast stripped the branches from the trees and deposited a jumbled pile of logs on the far side of the ridge.
[USDA Forest Service, 1980]
[Hi-Res Photo 156KB]
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 9 Prior to the eruption mountain ridges northeast of the volcano supported old-growth Pacific silver fir and mountain hemlock forests. The person is standing at the center of a vegetation plot, one of only a few places where the composition of pre-eruption vegetation had been recorded at an individual species level.
[USDA Forest Service, 1979]
[Hi-Res Photo 209KB] |
 10 A repeat photo of the same point, taken after the eruption, shows the effects of a blanket of volcanic ash that fell from a volcanic ash plume that drifted to the northeast on the prevailing winds. This is an area located downwind of the volcano and outside of the blast zone.
[USDA Forest Service, 1980]
[Hi-Res Photo 212KB]
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 11 Pre-eruption view from the former summit of Mount St. Helens looking north with Spirit Lake and Mount Rainier in the background. Note the dark green color of the old-growth forests that occupied the valley to the north of the volcano and the ridges surrounding Spirit Lake.
[Peter Frenzen, 1978]
[Hi-Res Photo 35.6KB] |
 12 The same view after the eruption shows the extensive removal of forest vegetation north of the volcano. The missing trees were buried by the massive landslide (debris avalanche) or ripped from the ground and/or toppled by the lateral blast.
[J. Franklin, USDA Forest Service, 1980]
[Hi-Res Photo 123KB]
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 31 Prior to the eruption high mountain lakes like Obscurity Lake, 10 miles north of Mount St. Helens, were characteristically clear due to extremely low levels of dissolved nutrients.
[USDA Forest Service, 1978]
[Hi-Res Photo 177KB] |
 32 The same view after the eruption shows the extent of eruption damage to the forest surrounding Obscurity Lake. Note the large quantity of volcanic ash that was eroded from adjacent hillsides and deposited on large deltas at the mouth of inlet streams.
[USDA Forest Service, 1980]
[Hi-Res Photo 154KB]
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 108 - A pre-eruption view of Mount St. Helens from Spirit Lake shows the smooth, conical slopes of a very young, and potentially explosive volcano.
[J. Hughes, USDA Forest Service]
[Hi-Res Photo 86KB]
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 109 - The same view shows the profound change in the volcano and Spirit Lake. The formerly clear mountain lake had been completely displaced by the massive landslide and choked with ash and organic debris.
[J. Franklin, USDA Forest Service, 1980]
[Hi-Res Photo 127KB]
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Well Now here's my story:
Keith Donovan 7-21 10/08/03
Hello today I would like to talk to you about the only exciting thing in my life as a car door. This exciting thing is the explosion of the volcano MT. ST. HELENS. Now they predicted this for days but never new when it would go off but finally on 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. A funny thing is a minute before the 9,677-foot cone blew off; the dog the person had in the car jumped out of the car and ran off. I should know he jumped out my window. When the volcano erupted a cloud of Dust rushed out and at the speed of light it wiped out anything in its path. Trees started cracking everywhere about a hundred miles from us and ash began too fall. So the person that owned the car and the car door drove for about 2 miles and stopped got out to see the bridge that was gone. The river filled with logs, and raging faster than lightning its self-carrying half the bridge. So the smartest thing he could do was drive the other way. We were driving for a while when it stopped. The rage of lightning and ballistic violence was gone, all gone. Then came a silence not a silence at home but like a peaceful silence one you cannot describe. As we drove there was so much ash that we could barely see it was like a blizzard only thicker and more blinding. So our courages and daring driver could go no more.
A day later I found my self in a garage badly and madly smashed. The engineer told the furious driver it was from burning lava something like a meteoroid only hotter. The stranger also said the car was lucky to run. From all the ash, most cars didnt run because of the ash. It would take a week to repair the car. Because most cars werent running all over the Country as far as Boston from the snowy ash. Well not to bore you with the rest of my life. Thats my story of the excitement of a lifetime. After you read this think about the fury of Mother Nature because there wont be a big one like this for a while!!!!
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