Having a little hissing fit

At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted.

Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

It's hard to believe that eruption was over 25 years ago. In "volcanic" time, 25 years is just a blip, of course. Most days, all is quiet on Mount St. Helens. The mountain lays peacefully in the sun or, more commonly, hunkers down with a shawl of clouds snuggled in around her shoulders. The mountain, although half the size she was before the eruption, is still an awesomely powerful sight, even from miles and miles away.

Although you may think there's little to see at Mount St. Helens beyond the wonder of nature repairing itself 25 years after what seemed like irreparable devastation, it's fascinating to see now how Mount St. Helens is starting the slow process of actually rebuilding herself to her previous stature. The U.S. Forest Service maintains a Mount St. Helens web cam pointed at the mountain to quietly, patiently watch and wait.

How do mountains rebuild themselves? On a clear day at Mount St. Helens you see the new mountain slowly expanding as a steamy, crawling bubble, known as the dome, in the middle of the cauldron that was created by the eruption. The web cam takes a new picture every 5 minutes to document the mountain's steady progress.

This sunny Sunday morning on the first day of October, the mountain is having a bit of a hissing fit. The cold fall mornings help to show off the molten activity happening in the mysterious cauldron of Mount St. Helens. If you look closely, you can see the new dome that is growing in the middle of the cauldron. The dome is created by molten lava flowing up from deep inside the earth and slowly, steadily, patiently rebuilding what, 25 years ago, was exploded away in a fiery, devastating explosion. As the hot lava boils out into the cold morning air you can see the steam escaping and a trail of white puffy clouds trailing away over her back.

There is no way to predict if this slow, steady growth will continue or if Mount St. Helens will some day have another major eruption, blasting away the progress towards rebuilding she continues day after day to make. I find myself peaking in on Mount St. Helens several times a week. Looking to see what she's doing. In some way it is oddly comforting to ponder the solid reality of the earth in sharp contrast to the unreality of politics, work-life, traffic, and TV. The daily haze of activity that we all swirl around in day in and day out stands in sharp contrast to Mount St. Helens' slow and steady march back into the sky.