Mount Saint Helens and Spirit Lake
A Landscape Violently Transformed and Slowly Reclaimed by Nature
Before May 18, 1980, Spirit Lake reflected one of the most beautiful volcanoes in North America. Mount St. Helens rose above the forests of southwestern Washington as a near-perfect snow-covered cone, glowing at sunset above dark evergreen ridges and mirrored in the still waters below. For more than a century the volcano had remained quiet in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Then, in a matter of minutes, the landscape changed forever.
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I never really built a relationship with Mount Saint Helens in the same deeply personal way that I did with Mount Rainier. But in those early years, I was an aspiring mountain climber, and all of the great peaks of the American West held meaning for me.
I always wanted to climb that perfect cone, but there were other mountains to pursue, and I never quite got around to climbing it. There seemed to be no urgency. Mountains like Saint Helens felt eternal, as though they would always be there waiting for me. I had no idea the clock was already ticking.
On May 18, 1980, Mount Saint Helens violently erupted, blowing away much of its upper flanks and devastating the forests, lakes, and meadows surrounding the peak. A massive ash plume drifted hundreds of miles across the West while superheated gases and debris swept across the landscape around Spirit Lake, killing 57 people and causing more than a billion dollars in damage. Millions of trees were flattened, many of them eventually forming a massive floating log jam on Spirit Lake.
I’ll never forget that morning. I was on my way to breakfast at the Black Diamond Bakery when I noticed an eerie darkness in the sky. On the radio came the news that Mount Saint Helens had finally erupted after weeks of warning. At the time, it felt as though the world itself had changed forever.
Yet when it comes to nature, nothing is forever.
Before the eruption, one of the classic backpacking trips in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest was the Mount Margaret Loop Trail. In 1973 and again in 1977, I backpacked the 28-mile route with Margie and friends. The trail wound through forests, lakes, ridges, and wildflower covered meadows with stunning views of Spirit Lake and Mount Saint Helens along the way. Those views inspired me to climb the mountain someday.
During one of those backpacking trips in 1973, I photographed Mount Saint Helens at sunset from above Spirit Lake. In the fading evening light, the volcano glowed above the dark forested ridges, its snow-covered slopes still untouched by the violence that would come seven years later. After the eruption, the photograph took on a different meaning for me. It had become a record of a vanished landscape — a reminder of the mountain as it once was. Years later the image was used for the cover of composer Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 50, Mount Saint Helens, a work inspired by the volcano itself.
After the eruption, scientists and land managers debated what should become of the devastated landscape. Eventually it was decided that the area should be protected and allowed to recover naturally, creating what would become a living laboratory for scientists studying ecological recovery.
On August 26, 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, preserving more than 110,000 acres for scientific research, education, and recreation.
At the time, there was tremendous pressure to salvage the vast quantities of downed timber left behind by the eruption. In a region where logging has long been an important part of the economy, the fallen trees represented enormous economic value. Yet large-scale salvage operations would also have required new roads and heavy equipment across some of the most fragile parts of the blast zone, further scarring an already devastated landscape. By protecting much of the area within the newly created monument, the land was largely allowed to recover on its own while giving scientists a rare opportunity to study how nature responds after catastrophic disturbance.
By 1986 the mountain was considered safe enough for climbing once again. Access was restricted to a limited number of permits issued each day. A few of my coworkers and I were fortunate to obtain a climbing permit for one day the following summer.
We made the long drive from the Seattle area to Climbers Bivouac at 3,300 feet on the southern flank of the mountain and camped there overnight. Before dawn the next morning, we shouldered our packs, switched on our headlamps, and began climbing up the Monitor Ridge route.
At first the climb felt little more than a steep hike. Dense fog covered the mountain that morning, making route finding through the trees and lava fields difficult. I had never climbed this route before, but my coworkers trusted my map-and-compass experience to guide us upward. Once we left timberline, my instinct was simply to head due north, which fortunately proved correct.
The climb itself was never especially technical, but it was exhausting. The final 1,300 feet were steep, loose, and covered in volcanic ash and cinders that made every step feel uncertain. It often seemed like we were sliding one step back for every two steps forward.
Around noon we finally reached the 8,363-foot summit after climbing nearly 5,000 feet in five miles. By then we had climbed above the fog into brilliant sunshine. Standing on the rim of the enormous crater, I was overwhelmed by the sheer power of nature. The eruption had blown away the upper 1,300 feet of the mountain, leaving behind a crater nearly 2,000 feet deep.
.We lingered on the summit for a long time, eating lunch, taking photographs, congratulating one another, and staring out at the chain of distant volcanoes rising across the horizon. Which “dormant” volcano would erupt next, we wondered. Eventually it was time for the long five-mile descent back to camp. I remember having to stop every mile or so to empty volcanic ash and loose rock from my boots.
Almost twenty years later, after graduating from college in 2006, my daughter Molly decided that she wanted to climb Mount Saint Helens. I was thrilled when she asked me to join her.
Instead of camping at Climbers Bivouac, we stayed in the nearby town of Cougar at the Lone Fir Resort and woke before dawn for the drive to the trailhead. We began climbing Monitor Ridge around 5:00 in the morning while Margie remained behind with a two-way radio. We wanted to stay in contact and there was no cell service in the area back then.
Like my earlier climb, the morning began in fog before the sun gradually broke through. The route seemed easier this time, perhaps because years of climbing had worn a clearer path across the cinder and ash slopes. We easily reached the summit by 11:00 a.m., sat down for lunch, and spent time taking photographs along the crater rim.
For me, the experience was deeply satisfying and emotional. Climbing Mount Saint Helens with my daughter remains one of the most meaningful mountain experiences of my life. As it turned out, it would also be my final mountain climb.
In 2013 Margie and I returned once again, this time to hike one of the newer trails leading to Norway Pass on the slopes of Mount Margaret. Standing there overlooking Spirit Lake, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful sense of déjà vu. The landscape felt strangely familiar.
Later, after studying an old map, I realized why. I was standing in almost the exact same place where I had stood nearly forty years earlier while backpacking around Spirit Lake before the eruption.
Forty-six years after the eruption, Mount Saint Helens remains a place of both destruction and renewal. What has always amazed me is nature’s ability to heal when given time and space to recover. After the eruption, many people believed the landscape around Mount Saint Helens had been destroyed beyond repair. Yet over the decades, life has slowly returned. Forests have begun to regenerate, wildflowers have spread across the ash-covered slopes, and wildlife has reclaimed much of the mountain’s shattered terrain. The recovery did not happen quickly, but it happened largely because the land was allowed to heal on its own.
Today the scars of the eruption still remain across the landscape — shattered trees, lava fields, ash-covered slopes, and the floating logs that continue to drift across Spirit Lake. Yet when I walk the trails above Spirit Lake or stand on the volcanic slopes, I no longer see only destruction. I also see resilience and the enduring power of the natural world to renew itself. The mountain is no longer the perfect cone I once knew, but perhaps that is why it feels even more powerful now — a place shaped by destruction, recovery, and renewal.
See Jeff’s previous articles at the Substack Archive.
See more of Jeff’s work at Jeff Goulden Photography.
Jeff Goulden is a nature, landscape, wildlife photographer and writer based in Flagstaff, Arizona. His work has appeared in Audubon, National Geographic, Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society and other publications.
See more of Jeff's photography at www.JeffGouldenPhotography.com. Downloads are available at Getty Images. Selected fine art prints and other unique photo products are available at Fine Art America.
Excellent article. Descriptive with personal memories the reader can identify with. Kudos to the author.