More Reflections on Spirit Lake

Paul King adds to yesterday's post about Spirit Lake, which for him was both beautiful and eerie.

I just read your essay on where you stood 30 years ago on
the eve of the eruption of Mt. Helens. I recall visits to Spirit
Lake circa 1960-66 when I, too was a reporter at the Longview
Daily News.

You have described the tranquility and beauty of the lake at
the foot of the mountain. Let me relate a few of my own
experiences. I first visited that area in the early 1950s when
we lived in Tacoma and our oldest daughter was an infant.

Although my wife and I were overwhelmed by the natural
beauty, I strolled about the campground on the lake shore
and spied the holes in ground which appeared to have no
bottom. I asked a group of campers about them. They told
me they were the casts of a forest destroyed by a massive
eruption of the mountain centuries earlier and where the
wood had rotted away with the passage of time.

I had no way of knowing then that we would move with our
three daughters in a few short years to Longview, buy our
first home and make many friendships that endure to this
day. And my newspaper work was fulfilling and enjoyable.

I was sent once to interview Harry Truman, owner and operator
of the tourist lodge on the south lake shore. Harry was a flawed
character who reeked of booze, frequently invoked the deities and
was addicted to inventive scatological outbursts. Today he, the lodge
he built, and a legion cats who dwelt in it with him lie beneath
200+ feet of volcanic ash.

But I digress. Although my family and I enjoyed the alpine beauty, I
was never able to visit the site without a sense of eeriness and
impending doom. Two of our girls attended the youth camp on
the north shore. But whenever I walked through the campground,
the hair would rise on the back of my neck when I inspected those
ancient tree casts. And I always managed to find some reason why
some other peak, say Mt. Rainier, would be a more suitable site
for our mountain camping excursions.

We have visited the volcano several times since. We are impressed
at the rapidity of recovery of the flora and fauna and look forward
to new OPB TV coverage of what 30 years can do to restore vegetation
and wildlife. I hope the infirmities of age will permit us to make
one more visit to what is left of that magnificent mountain, doubtless
resting for its next uncontrollable and catastrophic spasm.

The Difference of a Day

Thirty years ago on this day, May 17, I naively stood on the sun-washed, quivering flanks of Mount St. Helens. I can see it now: the mountain’s ash-sullied dome, the luminous Spirit Lake, and the family cabins clustered not far from the shore and the lapping, glittering water.

Sixteen hours later, the avalanching summit of the exploding volcano would bury it all.

My being there on that Saturday in the spring of 1980 was no act of bravery. In retrospect, the few dozen of us there were foolish and reckless.

We should not have been there.

I should not have been sent there.

Blame it on my editors, journalistic curiosity and the pursuit of a “good story.”

I was a reporter on assignment for the Daily News in nearby Longview, Washington. I was doing a job that I happened to love.

Three people I interviewed that day were dead the next. Their bodies, the cabins, the parking lot, and the old lake’s bed are now just so much substratum beneath hundreds of feet of volcanic sediment.

No one will ever again stand where I stood that day. The sheriff's deputies, cabin owners (packing up their belongings), reporters and the doomed holdouts were the last to see it in that moment of geologic time.

Spirit Lake is still on the map, of course. If you visit the volcano monument’s overlooks, you will witness a stew of a lake called “Spirit Lake.” It is nothing like the old one, now a remembered jewel set in the Cascades.

Today’s Spirit Lake’s bottom is above the surface of the shimmering lake I admired that pristine spring day 30 years ago.

Each year on this day, I think of how May 17, 1980, came so close to being my last day of life.

I try to attribute a higher purpose to my good fortune but know there was none. The purpose has been mine and that of those who have inspired and supported me.

Still, these years do seem like a gift. Who gave them to me? I do not know any more than I know who gave me life itself. But I do feel it, this ineffable mystery.

And so this day gives me pause, and in that pause I give thanks.

The Volcano Expert speaks. Listen up!

I know something about volcanos.

In 1980 I was a reporter at a newspaper that had an active volcano suddenly come to life in its circulation area. Mount St. Helens made great copy when it erupted.

Disaster everywhere! Ash and mayhem like you wouldn’t believe! We loved it. The stories were so good that the paper, the Longview Daily News, won a Pulitzer for them.

Okay, so I’ve established my volcano “cred.”

Now let me explain what’s going on with the Icelandic volcano.

There are clearly three possible explanations for the disruptive eruption — note, by the way, that the words have the same root. That's a tip-off.

Number 1 explanation

Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The eruption is exactly the sort of tactic the terrorists used on 9/11. It goes like this: Carry your cause forward by messing with planes. But this time they went about it in an even more secretive way — underground. REALLY underground. We all know where bin Laden has been for the last nine years: in an underground cave, that’s where. If you were forced to live in a cave, you’d get very good at digging and using the “raw, explosive power of the earth.” You can see where this is going.... That’s right, directly to the bowels of Iceland and the heart of this beastly volcano.

And to think we've been looking for bin Laden in the Afghanistan Kush. Pfsush! He's been tampering with a volcano in Iceland all these years. The plot is so insidious that Al Qaeda chose a volcano whose name is so unpronounceable, so alien, that the source of the problem can’t even be talked about. Go ahead, try it:

Eyjafjallajokull

Number 2 explanation:

Barack Obama and the majority Democrats. First, note the similarity in the names: Osama and Obama. You may have done this before, but it is STILL very suspicious. Secondly, this volcano is clearly bad. All things bad derive from Obama and Democrats. It just goes with the territory. Health care? BAD! Bank reform? BAD! The unannounced Supreme Court nominee? Pre-BAD! No further explanation needed.

Then there’s the fact that Obama was born in Iceland. Didn’t know that, did you? Very suspicious and hidden by the Media. If you want to get rid of this volcano, vote this November against the socialistic, destructive, Icelandic, Democrat, volcanic cabal in Washington.

Number 3 explanation:

Finally, the traditional source of all disasters that mere mortals can’t control or explain: The Gods. Try to change your flight itinerary. The Gods won't allow it! Try to book a train out of Stockholm (I actually have British friends who are stranded in Damascus — and I don’t mean the one in Oregon). The Gods won't allow it! Complain that the air ministries are being overly cautious. The Gods won't allow it!

And, yes, point your finger at Osama and Obama (I personally suspect Rush Limbaugh but, as a journalist I recognize my bias when I see it). The Gods won't allow it! The fact is that all you can really do is rail against the Gods. Of course THAT won’t do any good. So what now?

SACRIFICES, that's what!

My first thought was to give my accumulated airline miles to my mother-in-law. Another appropriate sacrifice might be vacations. I might force myself to stay at home with the cat. The Gods obviously don’t like all this air travel. Maybe they have a problem with driving too. Perhaps I should sacrifice my Toyota or my motor scooter. Pitch them over the rim of the crater.

My first born isn’t a possibility because he isn’t technically a “first born,” as I have no second born. And he’s 32 and not a virgin either. Worse, he’s an attorney. If you sacrifice attorneys, they sue, which is worse than being stranded in Damascus.

Conclusions:

I hope this has made the Icelandic volcano thing clear. Of the three explanations, I’m inclined to go with the last. If we all sacrifice a little, we won’t even notice we have a problem. In the meantime, we can show the volcano a little respect.

Come to think of it, the volcano might just be a god! So, cover your bets. Learn to pronounce his (or her or its) name. It could come in handy.

That’s Ey-jaf-jal-la-jo-kull.

Perspectives on reaching a volcano's rim

The view from Mount St. Helens' south rim: Beyond crater, dome and Spirit Lake is a distant Mount Rainier.

On Sunday, I joined a group of 10 guys to climb Mount St. Helens. I came away wiser, and most importantly, alive.

I write this as a 66-year-old, out-of-shape, and, as it turns out, self-deluded male.

Two thirds of the way up the south flank of the volcano I wondered what had I gotten myself into.

The “hike” is supposed to take four or five hours for the four-and-a half-mile ascent.
I toiled up in six.

It is supposed to take roughly two and a half hours to descend. Knees aching, drained of energy, I eased down in four. A little stumbling, a couple of hiker’s toes and a few scrapes and abrasions didn’t help.

I was the oldest in the group, but that’s no excuse. Paul, the next oldest at 62, climbs mountains every other week. To take the strain off my knees, he lashed my back pack to his for the final two and a half miles down to our campsite. “It’s nothing,” he assured me.

I believe they call these people “heroes.”

But to begin at the beginning.

The first two miles of the climb are literally and figuratively a walk in the woods. It’s a shaded, gentle grade. Deceptively easy.

Then, you are in the open and, wham, just like that you are staring at an unending, ascending flank of boulders. They range in size from hassocks to filing cabinets to Volkswagens. Jagged and angular, they confront you every which way. A maze of quasi trails meander in, over and between them for more than a mile.

Eventually after a short eternity, the boulders become more scattered, giving way to more than a mile of steep scree at the “angle of repose.” The term describes the steepest a slope can be without collapsing.

Trudging up the loose pumice, I found myself at my own “angle of repose," breathless, pulse-pounding, on the verge of collapse.

Two things kept me going. The first was the sight of my distant, speck-like colleagues waiting for me above on the rim of the volcano (you see some of them here, resting and peering over the rim). Three dozen steps made them visibly larger, ant-sized, and, more importantly, closer. The steps held out the promise of reunion and, yes, shared accomplishment and celebration.

The second was the quiet, reassuring presence of Paul and Stace. Among the most experienced climbers in the group, they stayed behind with me and another slow hiker, Mike, who was nursing a questionable knee, (Mike’s wife had warned him, “If you are injured on that mountain, I will kill you.” She wasn't smiling when she said it.)

Paul and Stace were there simply to be with us, to make sure we were OK. To them our experience was more important than theirs. They were, without ever saying it, our guardians.

What did I learn? The meaning of “strenuous” is relative, especially as used on various outdoor web sites to describe this hike. “Strenuous” is in the knees and lungs and pulse of the hiker.

“Grueling” or "arduous" might be a more apt term for someone like me. Then again, I saw 10-year-olds bounding up the mountain with their parents. “Must be genetic,” I thought.

On a brilliant, clear day, buffeted at times by a stiff, cooling winds, I gained a new perspective on this place I call home. I could see the distant city and its hills. On their slopes resides my house.

I witnessed a panorama of volcanoes, as far south as Mount Jefferson out beyond the cone of Mount Hood; as far east as Mount Adams, and as far north, over St. Helen’s rim and crater, to Mount Rainier. To the west was the Coast Range with its promise of the Pacific. To the northwest were the Olympics.

One member of our party conservatively estimated that we could see, north to south, a distance of 300 miles.

I learned the interplay between my limitations and my aspirations, and how to negotiate between the two. I learned another way in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Colleagues and companionship make us stronger than we are.

Two days after the expedition, most of the aches are gone. Over-the-counter drugs help. The scrapes and bruises are mending. I vowed when I came off the mountain that I would never take it on again. I’m already amending that. I’ll never take it on, or anything like it on, again in the physical condition I was — and am in.

Is it worth getting into shape to climb a mountain whose challenge is “strenuous”?

Probably not, at least not for me.

But forget volcanoes. Is it worth getting in shape?

After Sunday’s climb, I know the answer. I have work to do.

P.S. Now two days later, I feel much better, stronger, in fact, because of the challenge of Mount St. Helens.














Above, my old friend Andre and me, on the right.

An Overwhelming Story

I sat down today with an undergraduate at the University of Portland, who wanted to interview me about my experiences covering the Mount St. Helens Eruption. She said she wanted to know about what it was like covering events in May of 1980 and how small papers, like ours, The Longview Daily News, and large papers differed in their coverage.

As I all too frequently do, I questioned the questions.

Our coverage was notable (we won a Pulitzer for it) because it didn’t stop with May or with even the succeeding large eruptions that went on into the summer of 1980. Instead we stayed with the story of the dangerous aftermath for the next three years. A paper with a volcano nearby could justify covering it systematically and routinely, just as schools, politics, and the criminal justice system are covered daily by "beat" reporters assigned to them.

As important as the events of May were (particularly May 18th), the months and seasons that followed were critical to our readers and the very survival of our community. That was the point I made to my interviewer as we talked. News coverage that adheres to a 24-hour news cycle is missing most of what is going on in the world. Events unfold over days, weeks, years, centuries. At the extreme, millennial geologic time (real “mountain time” if you will) escapes the news, until one day geology literally blows up.

As for small papers versus large papers, as different as they are, in a natural disaster the most important distinction is the “near” paper versus the “farther-away” paper. The closer you are to the story, the more important it is to you and your readers. Particularly when proximity equals danger. The Daily News was all over the Mount St. Helens story because the very survival of our community was at stake.

Not so for the Seattle Times or The Oregonian.

And the growing threat became more and more apparent the more we found out about the destruction the volcano had caused to the watershed with its multiple tributaries that fed sludge and sediment into the beds of the rivers flowing toward our town. The new, unstable lakes that grew in those equally new valley basins beneath the snow-packed volcano were storage basins for flash floods of fluid with the consistency of wet concrete. Our paper was the first to write about that danger, a danger of entombment. We may have been the last to do so. No other community or news organization cared the way ours did. How could they?

When I finished this rambling account, I could see that my student interviewer had a list of 10 or so questions. But after asking a couple and listening to more of my extended answers to them, she said that I had answered all the rest.

I fear I may have overwhelmed her with a story that remains to this day exactly that — overwhelming.