[Snowday]

From the NASA Earth Observatory, a year by year look by satellite of the area surrounding Mt. St. Helens: World of Change: Devastation & Recovery at Mt. St. Helens

[Voxxjin]

That was pretty neat to see. I was down there a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to see the devistated area and how it looks after 30+ years. I had never been there before (recently moved to WA). And from my trip I kept thinking that I would have thought it would have recovered more. Of course I was trekking around Loowit Falls and that area is still pretty barren. But the slide show does show a good amount of recovery. I also thought it was interesting to see the 'shape' of Spirit Lake change from year to year (the logs moving around)

[trail wiseguy]

very cool. i really enjoy the cold lake area, so much to see there.

[Parelles]

I was there when when Mt St Helens blew - on my way to Vancouver from LA and decided to stop for a couple of days hiking! Got to Vancouver sooner than anticipated, amazing sunsets for days afterwards. Glad to hear the area is recovering, like me. Where I live now there are no volcanoes and hardly any rain, but it is a pretty cool place for hiking. Walking Holidays in Spain

[NacMacFeegle]

Very interesting, I grew up near Mt. St. Helens and spent much of my childhood hiking in and around the monument and it's been cool to see things recover. However I think I should point out that much of the "recovery" seen in those images is in fact just Weyerhauser plantings. The only real recovery is within the borders of the Monument (which you can see in the images as a lighter shade of green). If the blast zone outside of the monument had not been replanted with Doug firs then we would have tens of thousands of acres of meadows like we see now in the monument........ One last thing I found interesting was how much old growth forest was left near the South Fork of the Toutle River after the mountain blew! Sad to watch it be eaten away over the years in those photos. It's all state land, I wonder why it wasn't included in the monument?

[Parelles]

The reality is always somewhat different to appearances, at least they have been replanting. I remember the image that had the most impact on me was of a tree planting crew running for their lives as the volcano blew as I was on my way to Vancouver to go treeplanting! What really stands out is how the shape of the lake has been changing, remarkable. We should bear in mind that it will probably take more than a century for the area to recover, and much longer before we will see anything like old growth forest again.

[trestle]