longer.blue

July 16, 1980 | St. Helens Lake Tom Casadevall, U.S. Geological Survey scientist, stands on the lake's eastern shore, his lens looking southwest across the clogged alpine lake. Like the larger, more famous lake it drains into, its surface, too, is covered in the remains of a forest that no longer stands. St. Helens Lake sits at 4,567 ft. above sea level, just below the towering Coldwater Peak, in a bowl likely carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago. On May 18, 1980, the little 79-acre hiking hideaway was hit head-on by the encroaching pyroclastic density current, blowing an untold number of felled trees into the lake and muddying its waters. Nearly two months on, though, splashes of green were visible on the slopes around the lake. The recovery was already underway — you just had to know where to look. Sources: N.P. Dion and S.S. Embrey, Effects of Mount St. Helens Eruption on Selected Lakes in Washington, USGS Circular 850-G (1981); J.G. Moore and T.W. Sisson, Deposits and Effects of the May 18 Pyroclastic Surge, USGS Professional Paper 1250 (1981).