Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire May 18, 1980 - Mt. St. Helens blows...

Post up your pics/recollections if you were in Washington.

That the one they made a movie about with Pearce Bronson?

Was in Wilsonville a couple of years back talking to a guy that was in the area the day it blew.

He said traffic just stopped on the interstate and people got out of their cars to watch

I was stationed at Fairchild AFB at the time and we had an airshow going on that weekend. We had to get all the aircraft launched out of there before the ash hit us, we got all the of them out except for one which was an SR-71 that we hangered until we could get the ash cleaned up. It was pretty ominous watching that stuff fall like snow and we spent that next week clearing the airfield of it. We would work in 3 hour shifts with enough crews to work around the clock and it rained that week which made the cleanup even tougher but we got it done.

I was 10 years old and watching it on tv. I remember being very interested especially in the old guy Harry Truman that would not leave and wondering what happened to him. A couple of weeks later a relative brought me a baby food jar filled with Mt. St Helens ash. I kept it on my shelf for many years.

RIP David Johnston.

I was living in Eugene, Oregon at the time. The blasts shook my bedroom window hard enough to wake me up. About 170 miles away.

We were living in the Tri-Cities. Wife was 8 months pregnant and we had a motorcycle outing planned. Sky got dark and we canceled the bike ride and went to a car show instead.

Owners were not happy about that "stuff" falling on their cars.

We didn't hear until about 9:30 what had happened, and then no one knew what to expect in the way of fallout.

He apparently had a death wish. I did feel sorry for his cats, though. I guess he figured 'it can't happen to me'. I just hope he died quick instead of slowly cooking to death. There are still people around who think Pres. Harry Truman died up there.

I have recently become fascinated with a YouTube channel called GeologyHub which reports on volcanoes, impact craters, and other geology stuff. It says there are now 51 active volcanoes on the planet, with a couple others ready to blow - some very large and dangerous.

I was at the dump that Sunday morning, and the sky turned pitch black. Only had an AM radio in the pickup, had no idea what was up.

That ash was so hard on farm equipment for the next couple of years. Augers, feeder spouts, concaves, rub bars, plow bottoms, etc. Anything that came into contact with that abrasive ash wore out many times sooner than normal.

There were several towns like Ritzville that used snowplows to pile that stuff up. I don't know if any of those piles are still around, but I recall they were massive.

Plugged up air filters like crazy too.

The Yellowstone volcano will be epic when it pops off.

We lived in Quincy and got a couple inches (as I recall). It was my senior year and I was in church. My church class was in the basement and one of the leaders came in and said "do you boys believe in the end of the world?" then he opened the curtain covering the basement window and it was dark outside. I was feeling pretty religious for a few seconds until he said "nah, St. Helens erupted and you all need to go home". I don't remember if it was 1 or 2 days later but when I woke and the sky was blue I took a ride around town on my dirt bike. There was a bunch of hoopla about the "toxic ash" but it turned out that the crops grew better than ever. The people who lived across the street must have had a really well stocked liquor cabinet because they had a volcano party that lasted for days. Those who ran out to cover their cars got bad news when they took the covers off, the ash between the cover and car sanded the paint off.

I think I'm in the predicted 1000mm of ash area for that one.

I'm waiting for son of Krakeoa.

I live in the exact centre of the continent and I remember the gorgeous sunsets all Summer long. Also the next 2 unbearably cold winters that followed.
I hear if Yellowstone blows won’t be any of us around to talk about it.

That's assuming it blew full force. It would be much better if it just leaked off pressure for a few years. St Helen's didn't leak enough.

Wow.... 42 years ago... geez.

It was a sunny Sunday morning and I was outside with grandpa waiting for grandma to be ready for church when we heard the boom. The ash was blown away from us so it took a week or so for it to make it around the earth before we got some ash.

My buddy was friends with Harry Truman’s grandson and they traded a couple guns years back. Turns out that he has one of Harry’s old rifles that he traded the grandson out of.

I was skiing at Lake Billy Chinook that morning. We heard the booms, thought they were sonic booms from a jet.
Didn't know what happened until we got home that afternoon and saw the news.