Mt St Helens Eruption - May 18th 1980

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On this 45th anniversary of the eruption of Mt St Helens in Washington state, I thought I would share a few pictures that my dad took that day. These are all 35mm slides he took and I scanned in a few years ago. Time had not been kind to most of these shots, so fading, scratching and bubbling of the slides had occurred. Luckily with the help of Lightroom I was able to resurrect some to share here. I hope you enjoy the short tour of the eruption that day.

she-5.JPGI don't have the exact order of these shots but this one is obviously during part of the apex of the eruption.

Click images for larger view

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These were near the start of the eruption at around 8:32 am Pacific time. I recognize the mountain on the right so I have a little idea where this one was taken from.

Click images for larger view

she-6.JPGThis was from the roof of our house about 30 miles southwest of the mountain.

she-1.JPGYours truly sitting on top of my dad's van taking in the enormity of what is happening.

she-2.JPGAnother shot of twenty something me watching the carnage. I was also rocking a sweet Fu Manchu mustache at the time. 🤣

she-9.JPGLuckily for all of us in the Portland/Vancouver metro area the prevailing winds were blowing east this day and we were spared any ash fallout.

she-8.JPGThe eastern half of the state was not so lucky as some areas had up to 5 inches of ashfall. Quite the mess.

she-7.JPGLife for us that day went on pretty much normal as you can see. Subsequent smaller eruptions in the days, weeks and months afterward would bring us some ash fallout but never with the severity of the initial blast.

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Please feel free to make comments or ask me any questions about this post.

Photos taken by my dad with an unknown camera and some Lightroom post processing by me.
Please visit WorldMapPin to see the locations of some of my other posts.
Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!

silverbloggers memories photography eruption history pob vyb cent worldmappin
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"Wow, these photos are incredible—such a rare firsthand glimpse! Did your dad realize at the time how historically significant those shots would become?"

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I'm sure he might of thought about it at the time. Timing is everything though. I think being able to digitize these, restore them a little and share them on the internet would have made him happy. He always had a fascination with that mountain sine we moved there in the early 70's. He even made it to the top in the 90's.

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Amazing photos, my friend. It's really cool to have these records to keep for the rest of your life.

Your mustache was all the rage back then, wasn't it? Hahaha...

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The photos are special to have.

Yeah, it was a popular style back then. Me and about a million other guys were sporting them. hahah.

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Digging those flares of yours!
What an amazing sight to experience

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The 70's had just ended, I was stylin.

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You are really a good one on taking photos, hmm Volcanic eruption is very dangerous and causes sickness to people. Yet You really got incridible nice shots.

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I can't take credit for these pictures as they were taken by my dad. I do think I got some of his photographic abilities though. :)

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