Mount Saint Helens or Bust

After cruising along the Columbia River Gorge and heading into Washington state on our way to my aunt and uncle's house, a mysterious mountain loomed ahead.

Actually, we had to exit and drive a ways first, but then we saw it ... Mount Saint Helens, the stuff from geology class made of legends from the 80s.

It's been over 30 years, and the treeline is still barely starting to recover from the famous volcanic blast.

Here you can see the once snow-capped mountain that blew its top in a nine hour stew of gases and ash. Well, the build up to it lasted much longer, as you can imagine.

Eight foot diameter trees were snapped off their roots and the sound barrier was smothered for 30 miles around. My uncle remembers his apple farm getting covered in ash over 100 miles away, and a visitor from Ohio told me that ash snowed into her pool from that fateful day.

That's one mountain I think I'll skip climbing.