Friday, May 19, 2000

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

MOUNT ST. HELENS SUMMIT -- As he made his first ascent of America's most infamous volcano yesterday, Tim Scott felt rewarded enough in gaping at enormous Mount Adams to the east and Mount Hood to the south.

And then he reached the lip of Mount St. Helens' crater, joining throngs of climbers drawn there to observe the 20th anniversary of its violent eruption. He was unprepared for what he saw.

The view, exclaimed the 32-year-old Portlander, "opens up a whole new vision of the landscape."

Added his friend, Greg Cox, an experienced mountaineer making his 12th St. Helens climb: "Looking at the landscape here, it looks like it happened yesterday."

	Standing 4,800 feet up St. Helens' peak, climber Tim Scott of Portland takes a snapshot of his wristwatch at 8:32 a.m. May 18, 2000 -- 20 years to the minute after the devastating eruption. Companions Stan Mathews (seated) and Greg Cox, both also from Portland, accompanied Scott on his first trek up the volcano. Mike Urban / P-I

Unhealed devastation spread thousands of feet below and for miles beyond, the remains of a mountain blown apart in seconds and taking generations to reform.

Yesterday, the 1.2-mile-wide crater rim was ringed with climbers eager to be where it all happened, exactly 20 years after it happened. The day was almost as clear as it was that morning, before the cloudless sky filled with ashy gray-black.

The summit, at 8,363 feet, is by far the best place to view the vertical, burned-brownish-red lava walls that line the inside of the crater and the fractured, multilobed lava dome that has pushed up from the crater floor.

And from here it is easy to see the reshaped Spirit Lake shimmering to the north, the new lakes that were formed when the 1980 mud flows dammed streams and myriad pilings and gougings and hummock-building.

Though known worldwide for violence, the mountain has actually become tamer for those who climb.

The 57 deaths inflicted by a cataclysm of heat, ash and steam obscure the memories of others killed by the mountain -- climbers alone or in small groups -- in blizzards, avalanches and falls.

For those who drank in the view yesterday, the trudge was easier, shorter and less treacherous than the climb to the long-gone 9,677-foot summit.

That peak was not only higher, but also was ringed by vast glaciers with deeper crevasses.

The mountain's largest glaciers, on its shaded northern slopes, were vaporized in the 24-megaton blast that eliminated the picture-postcard peak that was likened to Japan's Mount Fuji for its symmetry and beauty.

The mountain, its white cone enhanced by and reflected in timber-lined Spirit Lake, looked too innocent to be dangerous. Yet it was.

Neither the Gifford Pinchot National Forest nor the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument records the number of climbers killed before the eruption.

But the number of deaths was fairly steady over the years, and sometimes they came in bunches.

In April 1975, an avalanche swept down Forsyth Glacier on St. Helens' northwest face during a ferocious storm, burying 29 climbers from Tacoma who were camped near the bottom of an avalanche chute. Five died.

Bob Allgaimer of Yakima calls his wife, Vicki, from the edge of St. Helens' crater. Allgaimer was one of more than 80 people who registered to climb up the volcano on the 20th anniversary of its eruption. Mike Urban / P-I

In February 1976, three Seattle residents, tied on a climbing rope, lost their footing near the top of the Nelson Glacier and tumbled two-thirds of a mile down the icy, glass-like slope to their deaths.

Since that day of sudden fury in 1980, not a single climber has been killed on the mountain, although as many as 13,000 people attempt its summit each year.

National monument rangers worry that, like the beckoning of the once-beautiful peak before 1980, the allure of the view from the top of the now-misshapen, hollow mountain will invite carelessness.

"It certainly can still be dangerous," said Brian Spitek, a St. Helens climbing ranger who estimates that 90 percent of climbers reach the summit.

He spent yesterday there, dispensing safety advice and information about the torn geology below.

There still are injuries -- usually from avalanches and from summit climbers glissading -- sliding down the steep snow pitches on their rears.

Sometimes they slide into rocks or off cliffs or into crevasses.

The most heavily used route to the top is on the south face of the mountain -- up Monitor Ridge, a long, jagged but gradual spine of lava rock and powdery, talcum-like pumice that chokes climbers.

The route was busy yesterday, with 82 registered climbers -- an unusually high number for an early-spring weekday.

Most, like novice climber Scott, wanted to observe the exact moment, wherever they were on the climb.

In the snow at 4,710 feet, Scott paused to photograph his wristwatch at 8:32 a.m. -- the minute the volcano blew 20 years ago.

"Happy anniversary," he said to the mountain.

P-I reporter Neil Modie can be reached at 206-448-8321 or neilmodie@seattle-pi.com