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Images of America: Washington
Mount St. Helens
The story of Mount St. Helens is that of an active volcano and human interaction with it. The mountain is culturally important to the regional native people. Its Cowlitz name, Lawetlat’la, means “Person From Whom Smoke Comes.” Early European settlers saw opportunities to make a living from the natural resources, and people fell in love with the forested valleys and slopes of the glacier-clad peak with the blue lake at its foot. Forgotten were the eruptions of the 19th century and the fact that the landscape was a product of frequent violent explosions. A report from the 1970s reminded locals that Mount St. Helens is an active volcano and could erupt again before the end of the 20th century. Only a few people at that time were aware of what the mountain was capable of, and many were surprised at the events that took place in 1980.
131 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 21, 2013
12 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
David A. Anderson
3 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
David A. Anderson has been photographing Mount St. Helens for many years and is a volunteer at the Mount St. Helens Institute. With photographs from public and private collections, many previously unpublished, his book illustrates what the Mount St. Helens area was like before, during, and after the eruption of May 18, 1980. These images show the landscape of the mountain as it once was and how the mountain continues to evolve today.
David A. Anderson has been photographing Mount St. Helens for many years and is a volunteer at the Mount St. Helens Institute. With photographs from public and private collections, many previously unpublished, his book illustrates what the Mount St. Helens area was like before, during, and after the eruption of May 18, 1980. These images show the landscape of the mountain as it once was and how the mountain continues to evolve today.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 16, 2022
Great book with a amazing vat of pictures and information. I have studied the Pre-Eruption history of St. Helens for some time and this book has SO MANY good pictures. This book is good because of the pictures you will not find anywhere else.
August 30, 2019
A photo book showing the history of the Mount St. Helens area, mostly focusing on older historic photographs taken before the May 18th, 1980 eruption.
February 7, 2020
A well-done collection of photographs and commentary about Mount St. Helens prior to the eruption.
December 18, 2023
worth reading but could definitely have more exact information in the captions about native tribes around the mountain as well as geologic information about the volcano itself and ecology of the surrounding area. also lol saying that native people colonized the area?? very interesting phrasing
May 16, 2014
A very interesting history of the area. I was really hoping for a chapter dedicated to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helen's, but author Anderson actually sprinkled interesting facts about the mountain, Spirit Lake, the Mount Margaret Backcountry, and more throughout the entire book.
Some interesting tidbits that I picked up:
The current Spirit Lake Highway was built after the 1980 eruption's backslide and lahars buried the road that followed the bottom of the canyon. It now takes people about an hour to travel the same distance that once required three days of hiking. The lower end of the bridge is at the western edge of the 1980 blast zone, some 14 miles from the crater.
I loved reading more about Harry R. Truman, and did not realize that he originally had a partner named Jack Nelson. Truman and Nelson could not agree on anything. In 1928, Nelson sold out to Truman and started a lodge at Harmony Falls on the northeast side of the lake.
Harmony Falls was the spot on the lake where Jack Nelson built his lodge after he sold his share of the Mount St. Helens Lodge to Harry Truman. He and his wife Tressa, built their lodge, which was accessible by only a trail through the forest or a boat ride across the lake. The falls are no longer visible, since they are now beneath Spirit Lake's waters.
The view from the alpine meadows of the Mount Margaret Backcountry looking south over the west arm of Spirit Lake and Mount St. Helens Lodge reminds me of a Bob Ross (Joy of Painting, PBS) painting -- a snow-capped Mount St. Helens is in the background, Spirit Lake is in the middle left. There are pine trees or some other type of fir trees flanking the mountain and just in "front" of the lake and in the foreground, a beautiful grassy hill.
On the bottom of this page, is a photograph from 1982 of an almost barren landscape. I realize this is all a part of nature, but oh, what a horrible natural disaster!
The catastrophic devastation that occurred (with the exception of some foliage that was buried under deep snow) on Sunday, May 18th @ 8:32 a.m. would be hard to believe if this event had not been so well documented, both before and after.
Spirit Lake was formed by sudden geologic events like that which happened in May 1980, The landslide that hit the lake in 1980 caused a tsunami that washed up the mountain's slopes behind the lake. The backwash brought with it the trees that had been growing on those slopes and deposited them in the lake basin, where they can still be seen floating in photos, including one taken almost two years later on May 15, 1982.
Some interesting tidbits that I picked up:
The current Spirit Lake Highway was built after the 1980 eruption's backslide and lahars buried the road that followed the bottom of the canyon. It now takes people about an hour to travel the same distance that once required three days of hiking. The lower end of the bridge is at the western edge of the 1980 blast zone, some 14 miles from the crater.
I loved reading more about Harry R. Truman, and did not realize that he originally had a partner named Jack Nelson. Truman and Nelson could not agree on anything. In 1928, Nelson sold out to Truman and started a lodge at Harmony Falls on the northeast side of the lake.
Harmony Falls was the spot on the lake where Jack Nelson built his lodge after he sold his share of the Mount St. Helens Lodge to Harry Truman. He and his wife Tressa, built their lodge, which was accessible by only a trail through the forest or a boat ride across the lake. The falls are no longer visible, since they are now beneath Spirit Lake's waters.
The view from the alpine meadows of the Mount Margaret Backcountry looking south over the west arm of Spirit Lake and Mount St. Helens Lodge reminds me of a Bob Ross (Joy of Painting, PBS) painting -- a snow-capped Mount St. Helens is in the background, Spirit Lake is in the middle left. There are pine trees or some other type of fir trees flanking the mountain and just in "front" of the lake and in the foreground, a beautiful grassy hill.
On the bottom of this page, is a photograph from 1982 of an almost barren landscape. I realize this is all a part of nature, but oh, what a horrible natural disaster!
The catastrophic devastation that occurred (with the exception of some foliage that was buried under deep snow) on Sunday, May 18th @ 8:32 a.m. would be hard to believe if this event had not been so well documented, both before and after.
Spirit Lake was formed by sudden geologic events like that which happened in May 1980, The landslide that hit the lake in 1980 caused a tsunami that washed up the mountain's slopes behind the lake. The backwash brought with it the trees that had been growing on those slopes and deposited them in the lake basin, where they can still be seen floating in photos, including one taken almost two years later on May 15, 1982.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews