Mount Saint Helens before and after eruption
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Mount St Helens, WA (3 hours by car from Seattle).
We learned that there is an observatory near this volcano where you can look at the mountain itself and nearby attractions. It is a long drive, of course, but the last hour of the road you are already driving along a mountain serpentine, and you can stop to admire it at least every 10-15 minutes!
The volcano is named after Lord St. Helens (and St. Helena has nothing to do with it), a friend of George Washington, who carried out topographic work in this area. The volcano is best known for its 1980 eruption, which was photographed by a photographer quite close to the epicenter, and he covered the camera with his body to save his results, although he himself did not survive. As a result of this eruption, the height of the volcano decreased by 400 meters, and the level of the nearest lake rose by 60 meters. Part of the lake is still covered with tree trunks that were torn out of the ground by the blast wave.
We stopped several times along the way, and from a distant point the snowy peak of Mount Adams was visible. The closer we were to the epicenter of that eruption, the fewer trees remained on the slopes. Somewhere there are already bushes, but there are more trees in those areas that were hidden from the blast wave by hills and knolls.
We walked a little along the path leading along the ridge along the volcano, but the lack of clouds and the scorching sun drove us back :) In general, the views are simply amazing. You can still see places where lava flowed just 40 years ago! Where there was a dense forest, now there are only rare trees, and somewhere closer to the top there is simply a lunar landscape.
On the way back, we stopped near one bridge. It is 113 meters long and the largest span height is 713 meters. This is the largest bridge out of 14 new ones that had to be built after that eruption. It stood on the very edge of the blast zone, but in total 19 bridges, more than a thousand kilometers of roads, more than 600 square kilometers of forests were destroyed... The forest grows back and new ones are planted, and the infrastructure has already been rebuilt.
Our YouTube video
Happy visiting Mount Saint Helens! :v: