The first time I saw Mount Saint Helens was in 1968. It was a beautiful peak with Fuji-like symmetry. This moutain was the most famous landmark of Cowlitz County, Washington. We made quite a few visits up to the mountain just to see the snow. In 1972, with Frank and my dad, we made a semi-serious attempt to climb the mountain. We didn't start early enough and weren't really prepared for the rigors of mountain climbing. I wrote a story about that climb. Here are some pictures (Password protected) of that climb and latter climbs of Mount Saint Helens. I was quite interested when the mountain began to smoke and rattle in 1979. When I attended Nancy's wedding in 1980, my plane ride was diverted because of the ash of a vocanic eruption. When it finally exploded, my family was all excited. They have a lot of hair-raising stories. A flooding of the Toutle River almost washed away Eileen's house. And of course there was a nice coating of ash on everything. Luckily the thrust of the eruption was east and not much damage to people was done in Longview. In the past ten years, I've climbed to the crater rim twice, once with Frank's family and once with my family and some of Kim's relatives. |