Wild View Yonder: 2010

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

St. Helens

Mount St. Helens [US Forest Service] Erupted in1980 [Wikipedia], blasting more than a cubic kilometer skyward, obliterating in that moment what had been a pristine wilderness park, turning much of it into a barren moonscape.

Today, some 30 years on, areas of the park that have been under the stewardship of logging companies have been replanted with thick forests, albeit of far less diversity than would occur naturally. Some large areas of the park have not been artificially replanted. There, the post-eruption conditions have been largely left alone except for restoration of a few roads and installation of several view points and associated parking areas, allowing nature to take its course and heal itself at its own pace, and providing an opportunity to observe, document, and learn from this experience.

Today, much of the blast zone is still fairly barren. Spirit Lake remains full of the logs of trees that were blown down in the eruption, covering about 1/3 of the lake surface, floating back and forth at the whim of the winds. In and around the blast areas though, clear signs are everywhere of life reasserting itself. Within the last 5 years or so, small trees that had emerged between the fallen trunks of their predecessors have begun to grow taller. Birds and other wildlife are increasingly found in these areas. It's not hard to imagine in another 25-30 years, this area will look much as it did before the eruption.

Meanwhile, inside the crater, another kind of growth is going on. The mountain itself is healing. At a rate that has been described as the equivalent of a dump-truck full every few seconds, a dome of ash and lava grows. Most of the time a plume of smoke and steam is visible over the mountain; more noticeable during cooler weather when the steam condenses as it rises. Given enough time, even the mountain will eventually return to a conical shape, leaving little surface evidence of that cataclysmic event.

For an up-close and personal look at the mountain, check out this Gigapan.