The Mount St. Helens Archive
Former SciComms guy Chris here. I talk about Mount St. Helens: the calm and beauty before, May 18, 1980, and the land’s recovery.
About Me: https://bsky.app/profile/mountsthelens1980.bsky.social/post/3lohgbvt4ab2d
Links: linktr.ee/sthelensin1980
- They make a nice addition to your living space and, get this, also a nice conversation starter if you want to talk about your historical volcanic social media accounts.
- It may come as a surprise, but my house is not covered wall-to-wall with Mount St. Helens items.
- February 1983 Accompanying USGS volcanologist Don Swanson on Harry's Ridge today is Olaf, a postdoctoral scientist with the Survey. As Swanson looks through a theodolite toward Mount St. Helens, Olaf also watches the mountain—while nursing a can of Budweiser.
- You may recall the story of the Davises, who were caught in the eruption in their pickup truck with their friend Al, miles north of the mountain. Here is a photo of their pickup in the devastated area, taken after May 18, 1980. The red trim is the only color in an awfully lifeless image.
- #MSH45 | May 18, 1980 Driving the Green River Valley, Dale & Leslie Davis and Al Brooks slow for an albino deer. Moments later, a boiling black cloud appears. “Get in the truck!” Dale yells. 30s later, the blast hits—glass shatters, the cab rocks. “We knew we were gonna die,” Leslie reflects.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens Archive@mountsthelens1980.bsky.social I keep forgetting to show you this meme I found in the wild:
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveWe were watching a documentary on Mt. St. Helens tonight. I grew up in the PNW, and that's one of my clearest early memories. Mostly how dark it was, and wearing masks.
- Co-star of the comedy sendup...er, serious disaster film "St. Helens" (1981)!
- I'll pick up this story...eventually... (mopey voice) ohhh everything's "eventually" with this guy.
- Planning for the future — reconnecting to a changed landscape. 📆 March 1986 📷 @wsdot.wa.gov / Washington State Archives
- Diving into Spirit Lake People, the mid-80s book of vignettes of life before the eruption. This 10-year-old miner’s nephew in 1924 shows what’s old slang is new slang, folks. Time is a flat circle.
- Its main sources are oral histories about Spirit Lake and Mount St. Helens, collected by the Oregon Historical Society from immediately after the eruption through 1981. Guess what? You can access them on the OHS's website.
- Old school #DataViz? In a way. This WA Geological Survey plate map shows the time of first ashfall from Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980. Isochron lines show the ash cloud’s eastward push across the Pacific Northwest, stretching into the morning hours of Monday, May 19.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveThe same exhibit had this drawing she made in Dec 1980
- A moment of calm. 📆 Taken between the 1940s and 1960s 📷 Washington State Archives
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveNew from me @sfgate.com Last week, the Mount Rainier National Park website said it was getting rid of timed-entry reservations at the park in 2026. Several news outlets reported on it. Then NPS quietly changed the site to say no decision has been made yet. www.sfgate.com/national-par...
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens Archive[Fourth Wall Break] As of January 29, 2026, we have officially reached 1,000 followers! This account was originally founded over a year ago to count down to the Golden Girls premiere in January 2025 (1985), and ever since, it continued into 1986, and I never expected it to get this huge.
- Late 1980s Let's take an aerial tour around Mount St. Helens less than 10 years after the May 18, 1980 eruption. From the log-covered waters of Spirit Lake to the devastated forests beyond, the return of life was underway, though sometimes hidden from the naked eye.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveToday marks the anniversary of the 1700 Magnitude 9 Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, reminding us to be prepared for strong shaking in the PNW. URMs are particularly vulnerable, but retrofitting can mitigate the risk. #FixTheBricks www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5wa...
- Speculative fiction author Ursula Le Guin's self-portrait of her view of a pre-eruption Mount St. Helens, done before the mid-70s. Pretty cool.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveSEAHAWKS ARE GOING TO SUPER BOWL LX!!!! Seattle Seahawks beat the LA Rams, 31 - 27! Hopefully you got to follow along and catch each incredible play of this nail-biting game in real time, but if not then find the whole-game archive at: pnsn.org/data-researc...
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveWe're ready for you, 12s! The PNSN's field staff revisited Lumen Field this week to ensure our stations were functioning correctly so we can monitor all of the fan generated energy from today's Seahawks game vs the Rams. Make sure to follow our live seismogram during the game at seahawks.pnsn.org!
- Looks like we've got a budding geologist in the works!
- @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social @mtjeffersonoregon.bsky.social Hey! The torch has been passsed! My 8 yr old daughter got an award at school this week for her project on Vesuvius and Pompeii. She is really into it, and took some of my vesuvian rock into school for show and tell! So proud 😀🌋
- May 19, 1980 Woodland, Washington Roadside spectators peer through binoculars to see for themselves the now-truncated Mount St. Helens. The volcano continues to emit lazy ash clouds eastward from the mile-wide horseshoe crater. Meanwhile, t-shirt vendors are capitalizing on the eruption.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveTephra fallout in Volcano Village during yesterday’s Episode 41 eruption of #Kilauea.
- Anyway, here's Bill and Flo at Harmony Falls Lodge in 1977. Hope they had a great time. Looks like they're enjoying it.
- To be them, and not to be encased in actual frozen water like I am here in the East. Would rather have the snow, believe me! If I go quiet over the next 48 or so hours, you've got a running start reason.
- Anyway, here's to Bill and Flo with their song. Maybe. I didn't know them.
- Jan. 11, 1981 Despite new lava growing Mount St. Helens' dome, those on the mountain's west side aren't afraid. A small village of "20th-century pioneers" 14 mi. away, residents of St. Helens are doing just fine. Gary Carey says the volcano makes living there "more exciting...more adventure."
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens Archivein which two diverse accounts I follow, @everylot-usps.bsky.social and @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social, meet and shake hands
- As I'm preparing to be covered in snow and more ice here on the East Coast, this seems nice at Kilauea. Put your hands up to the screen and warm up.
- Yes, I don't live in the PNW. I know. Tell me about it.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveHappy #FieldworkFriday and happy #BlueFriday! We brought the 12s Flag up to station EDM on the side of Mt St Helens this week! It was a blue bird day up there with just enough wind to get the flag moving which made for perfect working conditions. Go Hawks!
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens Archive@simonoxfphys.com is definitely up there. For geology content, GeoGirl. I love Nick's videos but they are LONG...I appreciate Simon Clark's brevity.
- This series is soooooo gooood.
- I'll see if a Zentner A-Z series on the Cascades counts as an audiobook for my GoodReads yearly book count. If I can do 48 hrs for Barbara Streisand's memoir (I contain multitudes), this should count, damn it.
- Also, let's make this a true thread. Speaking of Nick, who's your favorite current science content creator? As in, the TikTok, IG, YouTube, or here account from a scientist or science communicator you binge-watch the most? Oh, and not overly famous famous *famous* people.
- June 23, 1980 Portland, Oregon. Lingering ashfall from Mount St. Helens’ June 12–13 eruption has some longtime local residents — including George Washington — masked up to block the gritty stuff. #PDX #Portland
- Looking at some old Forest Service photos. Here's the Visitors Information Center at Spirit Lake, circa 1970. It was here that Ranger Sharon Burchard felt the M4.1 earthquake on March 20, 1980, that indicated something was up at the mountain.
- Now let's look nearby on May 23, 1980, and...oh. Phreatic vents shoot steam and ash into the air on the lake's new south shore. The Center would've been in the center, trending right, now buried under 200+ ft of landslide material and lake water.
- Mount St. Helens, May 23, 1980. Newly fallen snow on the slopes of the steaming volcano helps hide the scars left by the violence that rocked the peak five days earlier. The mountain simmers. 📸 @wadnr.bsky.social
- This feels like yesterday.
- I don't even remember making this thread.
- Anyway, head back to last January for the start of a speedrun through 300k years of volcanic and human history. "It's a blast."
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveWe are all Cow
- Vibes.
- The book cover that set volcanology back a bit.
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveJoin us on Wednesday evening at @MOHAI for a special event about the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. PNSN Director Harold Tobin and other excellent panelists will speak about how we can be prepared for the next one. Let's #FixTheBricks!
- Reposted by The Mount St. Helens ArchiveM 4.9 earthquake 19 km NNE of Indio, CA Did you feel it? Report it! earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...
- July 22, 1980. A cow grazes on a quiet pasture while an eruption column builds over the horizon. Ignorance is bliss.
- Alt text is wrong: Picture was taken in Lewis, not Clark County.
- Watch the videos I’ve posted over the past month on the May 18 lahars. If you need a gut-check on what lahars can do, read about Armero, Colombia. They’re fast, destructive, and often deadly. And it wouldn’t take a 1980-scale eruption for Rainier to send a major lahar downstream.
- Really cool summary of a recent paper in Geology (gift link 🎁): www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/s...
- Have a great night!
- Watching the news the night of May 18, 1980: roadblocks, evacuations, and lahars tearing through the Toutle River Valley. KOMO’s 11 p.m. update captures the uncertainty before the full toll was known.
- The next day’s (Longview) Daily News adds context on the I-5 crash: evacuation traffic backed up near the Coweeman Bridge, then a stalled vehicle and a tractor-trailer set off a chain reaction.
