Behind us is the big blowout of the North wall of the crater from the eruption in 1980.
Apparently the camera flash captured an Angel watching over us...
Close-up of the blown out North wall of the crater
Before the eruption, this was all evergreen forest. Twenty years later, the place still looks like a desert.
Remnants of trees that were shredded by the eruption. The explosion wiped out nearly 150 square miles of forest in a few minutes.
Jeff takes a break from watching ravens below Johnsons Ridge Visitor Center.
Anne holds a piece of pummice to show it whence it came.
The shore of Spirit Lake is still littered with dead trees from the eruption.
A closer view of the inside of the crater. Note the formation of the new lava dome, which is covered with ice and mud, but is still growing...
Anne hikes her way back toward the visitor center.
Again note all the dead trees. It's going to take a long time for this forest to regenerate.
The phenomenal mud & rock flow from the explosion wiped clean the land for 14 miles "downstream" from the crater.
Huge chunks of rocks actually created a few new pockets of wetlands, and many creatures survived the blast to repopulate the area. Here's a flurry of damselflies at one of the hummock ponds.
Cinnabar Moth caterpillars provide a service by feeding on Tansy Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), a weed introduced from Europe and which is poisonous to livestock.
