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See
also: Seven Wonders Summary, 1c and 3b-3e
Planning Your Trip. The Johnston Ridge
Observatory complex is the highlight of a trip to MSH. MP 52.
Open daily 10-6 May - October or later, depending on funding and
weather. Call 360-274-2140. Current visibility, see www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/mshnvm/volcanocam/.
The remaining sheets in Section 3 cover
most other MSH attractions. See Section
3h for ideas on planning your MSH visit.
The
Building and Highway. The Observatory
is the crown jewel of the National Volcanic Monument’s plan to help the public
learn about and experience the volcano.
To encourage the maximum number of visits, the government began by
building, at great expense, the safe, comfortable, pleasurable Spirit Lake
Memorial Highway (SR 504). It takes 80
minutes to drive its 52 miles from I-5 (Exit 49) to the Observatory’s parking
lot where the road ends. A second
reason for the government’s enormous outlay of highway funds was
survivability. The old highway followed
the river in the valley. Each moderate
mudflow threatened it. The new highway
was constructed high above the valley floor out of the reach of future
mudflows. It cost $165 million and took
15 years to design and build. The
Observatory was built into the ridge with thick, reinforced concrete walls like
the gigantic gun emplacements at Normandy.
Even if a moderate event destroyed the glass and contents, the building
might be repairable. This final leg of
the highway and the Observatory were opened in May 1997.
Best
View. Without question the Johnston
Ridge Observatory complex provides the best views of the devastation to the
mountain's north side accessible by car.
Ranging from 4200-4300’ in elevation it allows visitors to look directly
into the horseshoe shaped crater with its lava dome. It also provides the best views of the Toutle Valley’s deeply
eroded avalanche deposits. The complex
befits the volcanic eruption it displays with its $10.5 million visitor center,
spacious observation deck and walks, mall-sized parking lot, trails and
recently ridge-top vista. About 700,000
people visit the complex annually.
The view at the Observatory is the
next best thing to spending a few hours hovering over the area in a helicopter.
Four miles from the base of the mountain, the complex lies just a few hundred
yards from the location selected for the most forward observation station
before the eruption. Both the avalanche
and ensuing blast took direct aim at this first ridge north of the volcano. The 31-year old USGS volcanologist on duty,
Dr. David A. Johnston, perished. The
ridge and complex were named in his honor.
Seen from its unobstructed 360 degree ridgetop view are the hollowed-out
mountain enclosed by a towering rim on three sides, lava dome, apron descending
into the debris-clogged and erosion-sculptured valley, the hummocky Toutle
Valley stretching off to the west, the Pumice Plain to the east with Mt. Adams
on the horizon, the spillover in Coldwater Creek ravine to the north and the
devastation in every direction.
Best
Feature. In the 16,000 square foot building is a
large theater which shows a 16-minute film using computerized animation and
special effects on a 33-foot-wide-screen to re-enact the eruption. The viewer sees, hears and almost feels the
largest landslide in recorded history and the blast of rock, ash and gas
shattering the forest at 300 mph. The finale occurs after the movie ends,
however, when the curtain is raised and the real Mount St. Helens appears
through a glass wall, weather permitting.
The film is shown every half hour,
at 15 and 45 minutes after the hour. A
large digital readout in the lobby gives a countdown to the next showing. Heavy doors, like those of an elevator,
automatically close when it is time to begin.
People exit the film at the front of the auditorium, producing a sea of
bodies in the display area leading back to the lobby. By walking clockwise from the front desk to the exit doors of the
theater after the film begins, one can read the displays while the film is in
progress without being hurried by a crowd.
Don’t miss the remarkable display
just outside the theater exit that explains some useful information scientists
learned from the eruption. For
instance, they were only aware of about three lateral volcanic explosions
before this one; so, it did not occur to them that the volcano might explode
laterally, even though the north slope had bulged 450’ over two months and
thousands of earthquakes indicated magma was moving up into the volcano. In hindsight scientists have found evidence
of nearly 300 lateral volcanic eruptions in the remains of old volcanoes. This shows the limited knowledge of science. In view of such limited knowledge, it is
hard to understand how science can be so very certain of their claim that the
earth has existed for 4.5 billion years.
Next comes displays telling the
stories of a dozen survivors. Then an
extended section on volcano predicting and monitoring. An operating seismograph and sensor allows
one to see his or her own vibrations while stepping or jumping. A bank of three seismographs receives live
information from three remote sensors in critical locations within 10
miles. This information is forwarded to
the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver,
Washington.
Second Best Feature. In a large room to
the left of the lobby is a 12-foot diameter model of the blast area landscape
with 30,000 multicolored tiny lights that go on and off to show the sequence of
events during the eruption: 1) the landslide that raced down the mountain at
speeds in excess of 100 mph filling the valley to the north with up to 600’ of
deposits, sloshing into Spirit Lake and raising the lake bottom nearly 300’,
flying 1000’ up the face of Johnston Ridge leaving substantial deposits along
the summit and in the deep canyon to the north and roaring 14 miles down the
Toutle Valley, burying the Toutle River and State Route 504; 2) the blast, as
it radiated out from the side of the mountain and destroyed a half-moon of
forest 25 miles east and west and 17 miles to the north; 3) the east bound
column of ash; 4) the various mudflows; 5) the pyroclastic flows through the
day; and 6) the growing lava dome. One
can see these waves of destruction flowing out from the crater over the ridges
and down the valleys as the lights go on and off. The narrator and sound
effects fill the room. The sequence is
played over and over as visitors, especially children, push the many all-too-available
start buttons and promptly walk away. A
person could spend hours studying the model until he had learned the topography
of 400 square miles of MSH
Now the readout says the next film
showing will begin in 50 seconds, so it is time to move through the corridor of
murals with old-growth forests on its walls and the sound of dripping water and
chirping birds that re-create the feel of the pre-eruption forest. All the seats in the auditorium are good
ones but if you like to get the full effect, sit up real close. Sometimes you feel like ducking the logs
flying through the forest.
In the sales area you can buy a
video copy of the award winning film just seen. The sales area is stocked by the Northwest Interpretive
Association which provides a large selection of relevant books to the visitor
centers. The staffed information desk
delights to answer your still unanswered questions, pro-vide Junior Ranger
materials and checkout foreign language headsets. Forest interpreters offer a variety of formal talks and guided
walks. An amenity not yet mentioned are
the spacious, clean lavatories.
Crossing to the East Side.
It would take only six more miles of highway to reach the Forest Service
road on the east side which has three unique attractions: 1) the Windy Ridge
viewpoint which offers the best view of Spirit Lake, 2) a standing dead
"ghost forest" searded by the hot blast of the eruption, and 3)
access to the Loowit Trail which skirts the mountain’s north base. But debate rages over building those last
six miles of highway because of ecological reasons and because the land is so
unstable. Therefore, it is a 160 mile
drive from the Observatory to Windy Ridge.
One must drive back out to I-5, north to a highway crossing the Cascades
and east to roads going south to Windy Ridge.
There are also unique features on the south side of MSH. But it takes a lot of driving to reach
them. Ideally one can spend three days
visiting the three clusters of attractions known as the West Side, the East
Side and the South Side of MSH. Lloyd Anderson,
Rev 6/6/01
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