Mount St. Helens: Smoldering Beauty

By Roddy Scheer

	A still-dormant Mount St. Helens looked splendid and serene from the Eruption Trail at Johnston Ridge last July, just a few months prior to the start of the mountain’s new phase of volcanic activity. Copyright © Roddy Scheer

As I rounded the curve in my van, there before me, in all her majesty, stood Mount St. Helens, aglow in the golden morning light. I pulled into the Bear Meadow turnout, parked and walked over to the spot where unemployed taxi driver and amateur photographer Gary Rosenquist had risked life and limb 25 years before to shoot those famous time-lapse photographs of the mountain in mid-eruption. That morning – May 18, 1980 – Rosenquist and some friends were camped out illegally inside the peri-meter cordoned off by federal officials to protect people from an imminent eruption. When his friend pointed out that the north side of Mount St. Helens looked like it was starting to move, Rosenquist ran over to his tripod-mounted camera and clicked the shutter. The mountain started to implode on itself as it spewed ash skyward. In a panic, Rosenquist snapped off a few more shots before snatching his camera and diving into his friend’s station wagon for a harrowing ride out through ash falls and debris.

Twenty-five years may have passed, but Mount St. Helens is showing no signs of calming down anytime soon. Last fall, the mountain commenced a new phase of volcanic activity that, while less explosive than 1980 so far, has managed to fill up much of the existing crater with new magma. Meanwhile, photographers from around the Pacific Northwest and beyond have been flocking to the mountain to capture their versions of geologic history in the making. (more…)