Courtesy National Weather Service

One of the best days of my life was my first visit to Mt. St. Helens.

This was in the early 1990s when the closest you could get to the crater was on the east side from the Windy Ridge viewpoint.

My future wife and mother-in-law were along for the ride. The narrow, winding road along steep slopes was just terrifying enough for them to constantly tell me to “slow down.” But thankfully not so scary that they made me turn around before we reached the ridge.

The scale of the disaster just blew me away. I was living in the Midwest at the time of the eruption and while I followed the news closely, I had no idea how big it was until this trip.

This morning I’ve spent some time looking at some of the recent news coverage ahead of Tuesday’s 30th Anniversary of the eruption. I’ve found some great stuff, starting with the best.

Longview Daily News: Mt. St. Helens Special

This is an amazing interactive collection of photos and stories about the eruption, and recent interviews with survivors. If you don’t do anything else today, be sure to check out the satellite animation.

Longview Daily News: News Coverage

The paper also has links to several recent news stories from its front page. The most interesting one I’ve seen so far is, What if it hadn’t happened? The story looks at the local, national and global changes that have taken place since the eruption.

KGW: Mt. St. Helens Special

My former colleagues at KGW have put up a great collection of historic video and recent stories about Mt. St. Helens. This includes the newscast from May 18, 1980. While the front page of this section isn’t as impressive as the Daily News, there’s a lot more content to be found here. This should be your first or second stop of the day.

And the rest…

None of the other sites I looked at had similar collections. For the Oregonian, go to the Environment section. The Mt. St. Helens coverage is mixed in with other stories.

The Columbian has links to a few stories from its front page. It started a three-part series yesterday.

OPB also has posted several good stories over the past few days. You’ll find a list of them under the Mount St. Helens tag.

Courtesy U.S Forest Service

If you just can’t wait that long, the Mt. St. Helens Institute is holding an event with Bill Nye, The Science Guy on Saturday the 16th. Tickets are $10 per person if you just want to show up, or $35 if you want to attend the show with Nye. You can purchase tickets online.

Meanwhile, the road to the Windy Ridge viewpoint on the east side of the crater remains closed due to snow. It’s not expected to open until next month.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Tonight may be one of your last chances to be heard on the future of Mt. St. Helens.

The Mt. St. Helens Advisory Committee is holding a public hearing on its plan to increase funding for the National Monument, bring in more tourism and improve scientific research. This is one of two hearings before the committee makes its final recommendations.

Courtesy: U.S. Geological Survey

The Committee proposes to grow tourism by:

• Building destination resorts inside and near the Monument.
• Building a lodge at Coldwater Ridge.
• Building and improving roads leading into the Monument.
• Find more opportunities for fishing and camping.

The proposal also includes efforts to increasing funding by making Mt. St. Helens a stand alone unit of the U.S. Forest Service. Currently it’s operated by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The hope is that by giving the volcano a separate identity, it will get more attention and money from Congress. The Committee decided against making it a National Park.

Information on tonight’s hearing:

6:00pm to 9:00pm
Cowlitz County Commissioners Hearing Room, Kelso.

The next hearing will be held:

Monday, April 13
Camas Police Department Community Room
2100 NE 3rd, Camas

Whatever the commission decides, these are recommendations and Congress will have the final say about changes.

Earlier story:

Resorts Near The Volcano? A Future Vision For Mt. St. Helens.

Meanwhile supporters of a Mt. St. Helens National Park say they’re not giving up.  One of them is Mark Smith, a member of the Advisory Committee and one of the persons Natural Oregon has interviewed several times.  In a story for the Longview Daily News,  Smith says he has regrets about not speaking up more forcefully for the National Park concept.  The paper also interviews Sean Smith the National Parks Conservation Association.  He says the goals of the committee are more likely to be reached if the Volcano is turned over to the National Park Service.

The Yurok Tribe of Northern California is thinking about reintroducing condors into the Klamath Basin.  The tribe is holding a two day conference about the idea with state and federal officials.  If they go ahead, it means the condor could be flying over Southern Oregon for the first time in over a century.  From the Medford Mail Tribune.

Water quality is one of the issues before Deschutes County voters in next week’s special election.  Ballot measure 9-70 requires residents in the southern part of the county to upgrade their septic systems.  Groundwater in the area is becoming increasingly contaminated by nitrates.  From the Bend Bulletin.

State officials got an earful from Jefferson County residents who are unhappy with draft legislation to ban destination resort development in the Metolius Basin.  At a public hearing, some residents complained that local land use decisions were being overturned by the state.  Another said that part of the plan could threaten farm land near Round Butte.  From the Madras Pioneer.

The Mt. St. Helens Advisory Committee may have rejected the idea of a National Park. But the vision it lays out for the Volcanic National Monument is just as dramatic of a change.

Among the recommendations:

• Develop destination resorts “in and around the Monument” including lodging at Coldwater Ridge.
• New roads to improve access. One would connect Coldwater Ridge to Highway 12 making it easier to get from Mt. St. Helens to Mt. Rainier. None of the new roads would be built inside the Monument area.
• Broaden recreational activities, including more opportunities for fishing and camping.
• Increase tourism through better marketing, more interpretive programs and other tourist friendly services.
• Expand scientific work on the volcano with more money, involve universities and colleges, plus create a laboratory to conduct testing in harsh environments.

You can read the full list of recommendations at the Committee’s website.

Meanwhile, the Committee has scheduled two public hearings.

Monday, March 30
6:00pm to 9:00pm
Cowlitz County Commissioners Hearing Room, Kelso

Monday, April 13
Camas Police Department Community Room
2100 NE 3rd, Camas

Final recommendations will be drafted May 14.

Earlier Stories:

Did Apathy Kill Mt. St. Helens “National Park”?
Hopes Fade For Mt. St. Helens “National Park”

First, the list of recommendations from the Mt. St. Helens Advisory Committee may not be released today due to staff illness. As more information comes in, we’ll pass it along to you.

More importantly, we’ve had some time to get additional comments on the big decision, that the volcano should not become a national park but remain with the U.S. Forest Service.

Mark Smith is one of the members of the committee who initially started out as a skeptic of the “National Park” concept, but eventually came around to supporting it.

He thinks the committee, and the “whole country” for that matter, is missing an opportunity. “It’s a different mountain now,” says Smith, talking about the changes that have taken place since the 1980 eruption. “If it was still just the campground at Spirit Lake, the Forest Service would have no problem managing it.”

A View From Johnston Ridge. Courtesy: USDA Forest Service, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Over the years, five new visitor facilities have popped up between I-5 and the crater. Three of them were originally controlled by the Forest Service. But one of them was turned over to Washington State Parks, and the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center has been closed.

Smith thinks the National Park Service would do a better job of managing Mt. St. Helens as tourist destination. He says NPS has more experience with the marketing and advertising needed to draw visitors. The Forest Service, he says, isn’t geared up for operating tourism sites. Smith has some experience in this area, he owns the Eco Park Resort located just outside the Monument. He also thinks that concerns over access to hunting, fishing and other recreational activities could have been protected under the National Park concept.

Smith says he eventually went along with the Committee recommendations, but doubts conditions at Mt. St. Helens will improve. “They’ve had 29 years,” he says of the Forest Service, “I don’t have a real good felling we’ll see a lot of difference.”

Smith also appears frustrated by what he sees as public apathy over the future of this Northwest icon. No local group ever came forward to champion the National Park cause. Smith says the public hearings held by the Committee were like visits to a morgue, with the same small group of people sharing the same opinions over and over. “The public doesn’t really care,” he says.

A special committee created to study the future of Mt. St. Helens is wrapping up after a year of work. Its main recommendation? That the volcano should stay under the management of the U.S. Forest Service, and not become a national park.

That doesn’t mean the Mt. St. Helens Advisory Committee is okay with the status quo. Co-Chair Paul Pearce tells us the group also wants the volcano to become a stand alone unit within the Forest Service. Currently it’s managed by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

Courtesy: U.S. Geological Survey

How would that help? By creating a new unit, Pearce says Mt. St. Helens would become a line item in the budget, making it more visible to Congress and hopefully lead to increased funding. “The issue wasn’t how it was managed,” says Pearce, “but how it was funded.”

Spending on the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument fell dramatically from 1998 to 2007. Late that year, the Forest Service closed the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center because it didn’t have enough money for maintenance. That event was a wake up call for members of Washington’s Congressional Delegation and a few months later the Advisory Committee was formed.

National park supporters hoped that by turning over Mt. St. Helens to the Park Service, it would be better funded, become a destination travel spot, and grow the local economy.

But Pearce, who’s also a Skamania County Commissioner, says citizens wanted to continue fishing, hunting and snowmobiling near the Volcano. They could lose those activities if Mt. St. Helens became a national park.

Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center. Courtesy USDA Forest Service, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

The tipping point may have come when the Forest Service and Park Service made competing presentations to the Committee. “We saw much more passion on part of the Forest Service,” says Pearce. “We didn’t see that at all with the Park Service.”

Once the Committee releases the list of recommendations, it will schedule a series of public hearings to take in more comment. Look for a new story Monday on what’s next for Mt. St. Helens.

The videos take you on a tour of the crater, the crater rim, and the blast zone. They were produced by Immersive Media of Portland.

What makes them so cool, is that you can control the angle of the camera in almost all directions. Want to see what’s going on behind you in real time? Just click on the video and move the mouse.

So take a few minutes when the boss isn’t looking and indulge yourself.

Mt. St. Helens Virtual Flights