Footprints at Mount St.Helens

Today, again another lifetime experience. I visited Mount St Helens, in Southwestern Washington State. The weather wasn't kind but as Mother Nature intended, my gratitude is being able to visit this most amazing place.

Before Mt. St. Helens blew its top is was a beautifully symmetric rounded snow-capped mountain that stood between two powerfully jagged peaks Mt. Hood ( which Indians called Wy'east) and Mt. Adams ( which Indians called Klickitat). According to one Indian legend, the mountain was once a beautiful maiden, "Loowit".   When two sons of the Great Spirit "Sahale" fell in love with her, she could not choose between them. The two braves, Wyeast and Klickitat fought over her, burying villages and forests in the process ( hurling rocks as they erupted?). Sahale was furious. He smote the three lovers and erected a mighty mountain peak where each fell. Because Loowit was beautiful, her mountain (Mount St. Helens) was a beautiful, symmetrical cone of dazzling white. Wyeast (Mount Hood) lifts his head in pride, but Klickitat (Mount Adams) wept to see the beautiful maiden wrapped in snow, so he bends his head as he gazes on St. Helens.  This is one of many indian legends involving Mount St. Helens.

(information http://www.mountsthelens.com/history-1.html)

May 18 1980, a Sunday, dawned bright and clear. At 7 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), USGS volcanologist David A. Johnston, who had Saturday-night duty at an observation post about 6 miles north of the volcano, radioed in the results of some laser-beam measurements he had made moments earlier that morning. Even considering these measurements, the status of Mount St. Helens' activity that day showed no change from the pattern of the preceding month. Volcano-monitoring data--seismic, rate of bulge movement, sulfur-dioxide gas emission, and ground temperature--revealed no unusual changes that could be taken as warning signals for the catastrophe that would strike about an hour and a half later. About 20 seconds after 8:32 a.m. PDT, apparently in response to a magnitude 5.1 earthquake about 1 mile beneath the volcano, the bulged, unstable north flank of Mount St. Helens suddenly began to collapse, triggering a rapid and tragic train of events that resulted in widespread devastation and the loss of 57 people, including volcanologist Johnston.

(information http://www.mountsthelens.com/history-1.html)

On my footsteps around the World this is one of the most amazing places I have visited and am honored to be able to see such might Mother Nature creates