Where You Can Still See Signs of the Mt. St. Helens Eruption

The new top of Mount St. Helens is a crater more than a mile wide, while inside is a new lava dome caused by an eruption—a much less dramatic one—that lasted from 2004 to 2008. “There was lava squeezing out of the ground like toothpaste going out of the tube,” says Driedger. Amazingly, a brand-new glacier formed inside the crater, like part of a donut pierced by the new lava dome. Climbers can reach the volcano rim through routes on the south side of the mountain and peer down at the still-changing interior.

The most dramatic view of the St. Helens summit crater comes from the Johnston Ridge Observatory overlooking the mountain’s north side. Inside the visitor’s center, a video plays footage of the eruption before the screen pulls away to reveal a window to the vista. On the hillsides above the ridge, you can still see the trees that fell like matchsticks in neat lines. 

The road to Johnston Ridge, also known as Highway 504, is dotted with visitor centers, including Hoffstadt Bluffs Center, with its outdoor dining, and the education-minded Science and Learning Center at Coldwater. A 2.3-mile hike called the Hummocks Trail winds past the giant chunks of rock, mud and lava that used to be part of the mountain. “It’s akin to walking around a big giant puzzle, all these big pieces of Mount St. Helens that floated away. Geologists have actually walked through and solved these puzzles and identified where each one came from,” says Driedger.

Before the blast, cantankerous local Harry R. Truman ran a lodge at the edge of Spirit Lake near the mountain. Despite warnings to evacuate, he stayed behind with his 16 cats. The blast buried Spirit Lake and created a new lake 200 feet above the old one, clogged with logs. The lake itself is best spotted not from the Spirit Lake highway but from the Windy Ridge Observatory on the mountain’s east side, or via an eight-mile round-trip hike from Johnston Ridge to Harry’s Ridge, named for the eccentric Truman, whose body was never found.

Located on the eastside Forest Road 99  that climbs to a viewpoint called Windy Ridge, the flattened remains of a 1972 Pontiac Grand Prix show the sheer power of the 1980 eruption. The owners, a family of miners, died in a cabin nearby.

The 1980 eruption may have been a modern-day showstopper, but the Cascades have been erupting for millennia. The two-mile lava tube called the Ape Cave on the mountain’s north side was formed 2,000 years ago. Lantern in hand, visitors can hike through the cave past stalactites and stalagmites. The name comes from supposed Sasquatch sightings by miners in the early 20th century.