International Glaciospeleological Survey
Inside the crater danger at Mount St. Helens
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by Grant McOmie
PORTLAND, Ore. - Mount St. Helens makes its own thunder and the noise is impossible to miss. The thunder is the sound of constant rock falls and avalanches from inside the crater.
Geologist Charlie Anderson says the crater dangers are everywhere at Mount St. Helens: “Some of the rocks coming down the walls of the crater are as big as a Volkswagen. Even a hard hat wouldn't do you any good down here. You'd be totally buried in this stuff.”
Last November Anderson led a science team, just as he has during his previous 139 visits, inside the Mt St Helen’s crater.
While the mountain has been called “geologically quiet” for years, Anderson says the crater has been dangerous, risky and could kill a careless person in a moment.
As seen in Anderson’s videotape documentary of his varied visits, (Anderson’s trips into the crater began just after the 1980 eruption), the crater is a strange landscape marked by steam and gas vents, pyramid-shaped ash piles that have been formed by constant winds and algae-rich green and brown streams.
There are also “volcanic bombs.” Massive rocks that are ejected from the ever growing dome that’s been emerging in the center of the crater.
The fast growing glacier that’s developed on the south side of the crater has especially impressed him. From a distance, dark lines are etched across the glacier's surface. Anderson says the lines are actually deep crevasses and that they change with each of his visits.
“Crevasses on the glacier show movement. This one is moving down the mountain. In fact, there are many gigantic crevasses coming down.”
Anderson estimates that there’s enough snow mass in the Mt St Helen’s glacier to fill five million dump trucks.
“I don't think anybody in the world has seen a glacier grow from almost the very first snowflake. This is the fastest new glacier growing in the continental United States, and while most glaciers are receding because of global warming, this one is advancing.”
He’s hiked atop most of the glacier through the years, and he has also crawled in
many of its ice caves.
“There are 25 entrances that run nearly two miles distance. The caves are continuing to expand and sometimes they fall apart in different places as the glacier keeps creeping around.”
Unlike the steamy surface, the ice caves are a quiet, frigid-cold world. Anderson says there’s unique beauty found in the caves too.
“When you get inside the caves and then you get down lower, the sunlight filters through the ceilings. There's a real gorgeous blue color to the ice caves too.”
Anderson says someday the mountain will go to rest again. He hopes to return when that happens, but admits just “when” that will happen remains hard to say.
