It seems like yesterday, a day I will never forget.

wow its been 40 years already. Wonder if it will blow again in our lifetime .

Waggler,
Sounds like you might have a atory to tell?

I would never have though it was 40 ears ago ....

X2

This day always sneaks up on me every year. Yea, Waggler, same here, will never forget. I'll have to touch base with a Buddy that was with me that day.

Just talked to some Buddys who I was with when St Helen's blew. One of them summited the Mountain and drank a beer on top today. Another sent me some pics of the daze following the eruption. Pics Id never seen before. Ill look around tomorrow and see if I can send pictures.

I remember that day. About 2 in the afternoon the sky started getting dark, like the sun was setting. And then this very fine powder started falling. No one knew what the powder would do to people or plants or vehicles. Lots and lots of folks were wearing face masks for several days. Still found that fine powder years later in foliage and bushes and tight areas.

I remember watching that on TV when the side blew out of that mountain.That kind of destruction is biblical.
They say there is a much bigger one waiting to blow under yellowstone.

I was driving the kids home on the church bus. Dark as midnight by 1:00 pm. Lost the engines in my car and pickup from the ash.

Yea biblical is it in a nut shell. I know us young Bucks said a prayer or two. And yea,mainly prayin for our rigs.

My story isn't all that dramatic, but;
I was living 75 miles due north of St. Helens, I lived up on a hill, every couple of days I'd walk out (when it was clear) and look south at the mountain. Every once and awhile there would be an ash plume going up in the air a couple thousand feet above the summit.

St. Helens was a very symmetrical mountain, very similar looking to Mnt. Fuji. Over the preceding days I had been watching an area on the NE flank of the mountain known as the "dogs head" as it expanded outward like a big pimple. I remember remarking the evening before it blew that it sure looked like something was going to happen soon.

The morning (Sunday I believe) that I heard it erupted I walked out to take a look, it was a clear sunny morning with a slight haze. I was looking southward looking in the same area I had seen the ash plumes before, It took me a minute to realize what I was witnessing was enormously bigger than anything I had seen before, a plume rising over 65,000 feet into the sky.

I immediately jumped into an old car we had around the place and headed south on I-5, then went east on Hwy 12. This entire drive was to the west of the mountain out of the ash fall zone. It was an amazing sight the whole way, the freeway was lined with parked cars.

A few of us formed a little caravan and headed east on 12 until we got to a road block. We congregated there for a bit, then for some unexplained reason the game warden who was manning the road block took off. We all looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and did what any sane person would do, we pressed on eastward getting ever closer to the solid looking gray wall of ash that lay to the east.

The gray wall was approaching, when I say wall, that is exactly what it appeared like. The truck in front of me disappeared into the wall, I followed closely behind him literally feeling my way along the shoulder, if I stuck close enough to the truck I could make out his tail lights, that helped a lot. We proceed along for a couple of miles until we encountered a State trooper manned road block, the block conveniently located next to a small country convenience store. There was a pretty lively party going on, one I will never forget. Spent a few hours there until venturing back home.

Most of the vehicles were becoming inoperable due to clogged air filters. Luckily my rig didn't have an air filter. I imagine all that abrasive dust sucking through the cylinders probably put what amounted to tens of thousands of miles on that rig in one day.

I remember that on the news. Amazing stories from that event.

Yes. I watched a documentary on it one night. They have labeled it a super volcano, the mother of volcanoes if it ever blows.

I was driving home that day from a tree planting gig in the far northeastern Oregon along the Columbia river. Looked like the meanest blackest storm I'd ever seen marching eastward across Washington.

1300 ft of elevation was subtracted that day

I remember that day; at 100* west the sky was orange and visiability was poor in our spotting scopes. We encountered a Spoonbill sandpiper only the 3 record for interior North America to be seen.

On that day I was living in the Aldergrove area of BC and was out feeding my hounds when I heard a lot of booms. I thought by the sounds of all the booms south of the border that Bellingham, Washington was being bombed.

What a sight that woulda been Waggler
I was approximately 150 miles to the east of you at Potholes res.
A bunch of us were back in the potholes campin and fishin. The potholes are a maze of sand dunes, sand islands, and channels at the west end of potholes resovoir.
On the morning of May 18th we heard a loud boom. Like nothing we had ever heard in that country before. We discussed what it could be. Bear in mind, Mt St Helen's is 150 miles on the other side of the Cascades from where we were. She never entered our minds.
Later in the morning the weirdest clouds we had ever seen were comin in from the west. Horizon to horizon. The cloud was predominately grey, the bottom was never ending dulaps of clouds hanging down. The cloud got darker then lightning started going from dulap to dulap. Horizontally. When it did the respective dulaps would flash red, pink, orange, yellow. This show was nonstop. With this the wind started.
We started packin our junk and loadin our two boats. It kept getting darker. Bear in mind this was probly noonish. Luckily we got through the bulk of the channels to the main reservoir before it got pure dark. Soon it was so dark, I was in the bow of one boat lookin out, and I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I kept getting grit in my teeth and eyes. We thought it was sand blowin around in the boat. When we got to the launch in the headlights of the rigs we could see the ash falling like snow. Then we heard on radio the Mountain had blew.
We had two pickups and two topless jeeps with two boat trailers. Kenny knew his folks were staying at a house they were remodeling on Moses Lake approx 20 miles away, we headed there. You couldn't see anything on the road. I was shotgun in one open jeep. I would lean out the side staring down trying to see the edge of the road. There is no shoulder on that road. It was mostly by sound and feel how we knew we were gettin off track. By the time we got to Doug and Toni's we probly looked worse thanthe crew of Mad Maxx.
Wound up we were in direct line of ash fall out. We got 3-4 inchs at Doug's place. He worked us like rented mules during the day for the four days we stayed there. And kept us in beer while he got every cent we had at poker at night. Course Toni is an old school Italian Mother and cook and knows how to feed a crew. We kept the ash off the roof. Then wheelbarroed it down the dock and dumped it in the Lake.
One day Doug and Toni came back from town and told us there was no beer to be found anywhere in Moses Lake. Early the next morning we beat the air filters out on the rigs and headed for home. They had I90 barricaded. We drove through the barricades, then took back roads the 60 miles west home to Wenatchee. Wenatchee, slightly north of fall out got virchually zero ash.

Yellowstone's caldera is estimated to be approxx. 2,000 times as powerful as Mt. Saint Helen's eruption. Boco you could be toast all the way back east!!