At 8:32AM PST, May 18 1980, on a Sunday morning, Mount St. Helens erupted in one of the most studied eruptions ever.

A 5.1 Richter scale earthquake caused the northern face of the mountain to collapse. It dropped over one half cubic mile of debris into the valley below, the largest avalanche ever recorded.

The avalanche released an enormous blast wave of hot gas and rock particle debris, with temperatures as high as 660 degrees and a speed of at least 300 miles per hour. The blast was phreatic, the result of super heated water trapped within the mountain. The actual blast began about 20 seconds after the avalanche began, and at the speed of something exploding, rapidly overtook the avalanche. It blew 6.6 billion tons of material with the force of 20,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs, 24 megatons of thermal energy. Its devastation reached out almost 16 miles from the volcano’s center

The blast killed campers 14 miles from the mountain. All told, the eruption killed 57 people.

Almost 230 square miles of forest was blown down.

A cloud of volcanic ash rose 15 miles into the air. It spread across the US in 3 days, and circled the earth in 15 days. There were 22,000 square miles of land with varying amounts of ash deposited on them.

In August of 2007 I visited Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. I was happy to see the progress that Mother Nature is making in remaking the tortured landscape around the volcano.

But the scars are still visible on the land.

The 110,000 acre National Volcanic Monument was created in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan and Congress. It is jointly a research, recreational, and educational project. Much of the site is within a boundary line which only authorized personnel may cross. This is to minimize the effect of man on the area, that it may be left to respond to the disturbance naturally, and provide a study of the process. There is climbing allowed along a specified route to the crater rim, but entry into the crater is strictly prohibited.

Johnston Ridge Observatory Complex building has a number of educational exhibits, and even an IMAX movie presentation. There is also a monument to those who lost their lives in the eruption. The stories of what happened to the wildlife and plants in the blast zone were fascinating.

I was struck by the color in the landscape, as Mother Nature works to restore it to a more gentle state. The pronounced scarring on the land offered a stern counterpoint to this process, and a reminder that it will most likely all happen again at some time in the future.

For an interesting statistical summary of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, check out this website: www.mtsthelens.com 

Mount Ranier National Park in Washington state is another of our countries natural jewels. Established in 1899, it has the ‘feel’ of an old park. At over 200 thousand acres in size, and Mount Ranier’s peak of over 14 thousand feet, it makes for a large variety of stunning scenery.

Driving the southern section of the park, you will pass thru several tunnels bored thru solid rock. This photograph is taken from inside one of those tunnels, looking back outside to the east. (Note: Please be very careful if you decide to try and take a photograph like this. With running water and wind noise, it can be hard to hear traffic approaching you). This image was taken early in the morning, hoping to avoid traffic intrusion as much as possible.

Notice that you can see both the rock inside the tunnel, which is relatively dark compared to the outside light level, and the more brightly lit trees outside the tunnel entrance. In a traditional photograph, only one or the other of these two areas would be properly exposed and visible, and the other would either be burned out by bright light, or dropped out in dark shadow.

This photograph exhibits a wider range of light level visibility because it is an HDR processed image. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. The image is a combination of multiple exposures, each one exposed for a different range of light level. The multiple exposures are then combined into a single HDR digital negative, and the resulting HDR image is digitally processed from that hybrid negative. The image has all the light levels adjusted such that they can be seen even on the limited range provided by your computer screen. This more closely simulates the way your eye naturally views the same scene.

I hope you enjoy the photograph, and I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season!

Driving into Lassen Volcanic National Park in California, the first thing that struck me was the range of vivid, bright colors in the landscape all around me. From fresh greens, dark overhead blue, back-lighted purple colored Thrift ground flowers, light white clouds, and on and on. Its like driving into a new section of the land that is being lit by some special kind of light. Add the deep blue sky reflection off the water in lake Helen, and you have a window on paradise.

The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is located in the White Mountains of California. The Patriot Grove is the highest elevation grove in the park, at 11,323 feet.

When twilight and then nighttime come along, it can be a very eerie place. The dark blue skies of high elevation, 40 miles from civilization, no one around, and no lights in any direction as far as you can see, only the ancient Bristlecone Pines standing around you. If you watch overhead at night, meteors frequently fly soundlessly, and FAST, across the sky above you.

This shot was taken right at twilight, as the sun was about to go down behind the far mountains.

I arrived back home from a 5 week, 7900 mile roadtrip, at the end of August. I am happy to say there is still plenty of unspoiled, beautiful scenery in our country. I was also awed by the vast array of natural resources our country has, from one end to the other.

In Texas, on my way out to California, I wanted to go to Big Bend National Park, down south on the Rio Grande River. But there were heavy storms down there at the time, and being in a tent in the rain is not exactly a pleasant experience (to me anyway). So I looked over my map and noticed Guadalupe Mountains National Park in the northwest corner of Texas. I had never been there before, nor even heard of it. I went on up, and found it to be a scenic location, with land I don’t normally equate with Texas.

Here is a photograph of Casa Grande Peak.