What were you doing the day Mt. St. Helens blew it's top?

[Steve]

NOTE: This is cross posted at Where Were You On May 18, 1980

I realize that anybody under the age of 28 wasn't even born so this question does not apply to you.

I was 16 at the time. I was with my dad and cousin Frank at a bass fishing tournament on Silver Lake in Cowlitz County (only about 30 miles West of Mt. St. Helens). It was a beautiful clear sunny morning (much like it is this morning as I'm writing this). All weekend, we were hoping to see a puff of steam or a small ash plume, but all was quiet. I has witnessed several before on my frequent trips to Kelso.

Sometime around 8:30 AM, my dad had to head back to the resort to use the facilities. So he powered up the motor and we were heading back to the resort and he pointed at the mountain and when I looked up, we watched the initial blast and then Mt St Helens disappeared (just like the footage you always see of the initial eruption and landslide).

So we continued heading back to the resort. When we arrived, a lot of people were freaking out that they were going to die. My dad just calmly observed the chaos and decided to wait a little while until all the drama died down. Eventually word got to us about the I-5 bridge over the Toutle River was closed. That's when my dad made the decision that we were staying for a while longer.

So what did we do, we motored the boat over to a store on the lake where one could dock a boat, he went inside the store and bought a case of beer, and we motored the boat into the middle of the lake and watched the ash plume (obviously this is nothing I would recommend doing today - times were different then).

After a few hours, we eventually got word that the Toutle River bridge was open again, and that's when we loaded the boat on the trailer and headed home.

We never got any ash on us. I think most of it ended up in eastern Washington. The sky got dark (because it blocked out the morning sun) and the coolest part was all the lightening in the ash cloud. We never heard the explosion from our location. I'm not sure if that was because the motor idling or not.

This experience is something that I'll never forget. I feel very lucky to be in the right spot at the right time to actually witness history and see the actual initial explosion and landslide occur.

What were you doing that day?

[Jerry]

...he went inside the store and bought a case of beer, and we motored the boat into the middle of the lake and watched the ash plume (obviously this is nothing I would recommend doing today - times were different then).

I had done something similar, only on the night before with no knowledge of the mountain exploding, so I was sleeping-in when it blew. As you said, times were different then. It was on our youngest son's 14th birthday and we lived in Anacortes at the time.
Jerry

[Steve]

I was 16 at the time. ...he motored the boat over to a store on the lake where one could dock a boat, he went inside the store and bought a case of beer, and we motored the boat into the middle of the lake and watched the ash plume (obviously this is nothing I would recommend doing today - times were different then)

And guess I did when I was 16.

Steve

[richardattek]

We were at an antique motorcycle show in Albany Or. When we came over the hill South of Hillsboro in the afternoon the whole NE sky was a boiling mass of gray ash. To say the least, we were impressed.

Rich and Jan

[Accrete]

i was running a record shop in Reno Nevada. a few days later my Fj40 was dusted !

Sure is an interesting area to explore these days with all the changes to land and such.

Thom