Post by Sleeping Bag Man! on May 18, 2023 14:52:56 GMT -8
I've been a St Helens junkie since the mountain awoke in March 1980...but somehow I never saw these May 18 eruption photos until today.
Taken from Mt Adams, about 35 miles due east of Mt St Helens. I also found an account from one of the Adams climbers here:
publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12198109900/Mount-St-Helens-Eruption
SUNDAY, May 18, 1980 … a magnificently clear, bright morning. Three rope teams of four persons each had set out before dawn to reach the summit of 12,307-foot (3751 meters) Mount Adams, Washington State’s second highest peak. At 8:32 A.M., as they approached the top of this glacier-clad volcano, they paused to enjoy the unparalleled view of sister volcanoes Mount Rainier (14,410 feet, 4392 meters), 50 miles to the northwest and Mount St. Helens (9,677 feet, 2930 meters), 35 miles west. One of the climbers, Fred Grimm, suddenly stopped and gasped.
Later he reported: “First it was a little puff at the top of the mountain (St. Helens). Then, within two or three seconds, it appeared that the north side of the mountain just blew out. The whole top of the mountain was engulfed in the column of smoke. It rose like an atomic explosion … with sort of a shock wave that went to the north. It reminded me of the pictures you see on late-night TV of the world blowing up.”
“Suddenly the wind that had been blowing over us stopped,” Grimm also recalled. “The volcano seemed to suck up the wind and it didn’t come back for four or five minutes.” A vast black cloud began filling the sky overhead, blotting out the sun. Then it came … the heavy fall of volcanic debris, pelting the climbers first with a fine hail-like material, then bigger pieces, pebble-size, and some even larger, mixed with singed and sand-blasted pine cones from the vanishing mountain, which by then was obscured by the enveloping cloud of ash."
Hit by flying pine cones, 35 miles away!!
Taken from Mt Adams, about 35 miles due east of Mt St Helens. I also found an account from one of the Adams climbers here:
publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12198109900/Mount-St-Helens-Eruption
SUNDAY, May 18, 1980 … a magnificently clear, bright morning. Three rope teams of four persons each had set out before dawn to reach the summit of 12,307-foot (3751 meters) Mount Adams, Washington State’s second highest peak. At 8:32 A.M., as they approached the top of this glacier-clad volcano, they paused to enjoy the unparalleled view of sister volcanoes Mount Rainier (14,410 feet, 4392 meters), 50 miles to the northwest and Mount St. Helens (9,677 feet, 2930 meters), 35 miles west. One of the climbers, Fred Grimm, suddenly stopped and gasped.
Later he reported: “First it was a little puff at the top of the mountain (St. Helens). Then, within two or three seconds, it appeared that the north side of the mountain just blew out. The whole top of the mountain was engulfed in the column of smoke. It rose like an atomic explosion … with sort of a shock wave that went to the north. It reminded me of the pictures you see on late-night TV of the world blowing up.”
“Suddenly the wind that had been blowing over us stopped,” Grimm also recalled. “The volcano seemed to suck up the wind and it didn’t come back for four or five minutes.” A vast black cloud began filling the sky overhead, blotting out the sun. Then it came … the heavy fall of volcanic debris, pelting the climbers first with a fine hail-like material, then bigger pieces, pebble-size, and some even larger, mixed with singed and sand-blasted pine cones from the vanishing mountain, which by then was obscured by the enveloping cloud of ash."
Hit by flying pine cones, 35 miles away!!
