This planet is alive. And when the Earth has a temper tantrum, a touch of heartburn, an eruption, the aftermath can be devastating for decades, centuries.
We drove up Mount Saint Helens yesterday, and while it is slowly and surely returning to some semblance of it’s former self more than 30 years after it erupted, there is still dark devastation within 10 miles of the mountain’s former summit. The blast zone is going green again, but the actual mountain top is a gaping hole.
This is a photo of the serene beauty that was Spirit Lake at the foot of Mount Saint Helens, propped up at a window at Johnson Ridge Observatory that looks out to the crater.
Spirit Lake, just like the mountain’s once majestic peak, is gone.
Further down the mountain, there is a tiny pond that will eventually, generations from now, replace it. Nature’s way of healing herself.
It’s hard to visit the mountain and not think of the people who lost their lives when the volcano erupted on May 18, 1980. Some were never found. They belong to the mountain now.
Very serene picture….
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