Family and friends pay homage to those lost

Friday, May 19, 2000

By ANGELA GALLOWAY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT

MOUNT ST. HELENS -- U.S. Forest Service worker Jim Quiring saw a human lesson for hope after tragedy in the recovery of the devastated mountain.

Kristy Summers, a former Gifford Pinchot National Park interpreter and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde, paid humble reverence to the omnipotence of nature.

And retired surveyor Ann Orni felt some comfort in the tribute to her brother, killed in the eruption.

The three were among hundreds who visited the peaks around Mount St. Helens yesterday to mark the 20th anniversary of its eruption May 18, 1980.

Reflecting on the decades since the deadly blast proved a complex blend of celebration and grief. But a common thread united those who came: a feeling of spiritual significance of the event.

	Kristy Summers prepares to sprinkle sage and sweet grass as part of a ritual at Eruption Trail viewpoint at the Johnston Ridge Observatory on the 20th anniversary of the eruption. Grant M. Haller / Seattle Post-Intelligencer

As they do each year, a small group of current and former forest workers gathered to pay homage to Mount St. Helens and the 57 lives lost.

The half-dozen people spoke softly in a small circle at the David A. Johnston observatory, named for a government geologist killed in the blast. Summers, who handed out bits of tobacco to scatter at 8:32 a.m., said they gathered to "bless and honor what happened here.

"We can't control nature and this is what brings people here," said Summers, of Sheridan, Ore.

"Mankind can try to control Mother Earth, but in Her own way She holds the last card -- the trump. She can take, but She can give."

And it is what the earth gives that has occupied Quiring's thoughts as he reflected on the anniversary in recent weeks.

The stunning, if slow, natural recovery shows there is hope even after tragedy, said Quiring, who oversees three visitors centers near the mountain and who has worked there for 19 years.

"We can take hope from the landscape of St. Helens," Quiring said. "I think each of us has the same capacity."

Tom Knappenberger, an official with the Mount St. Helens National Monument, added that the anniversary is an opportunity to remember the "totality of the loss" -- of lives, of property, and a way of life enjoyed by folks who lived and vacationed in the area's alpine forests.

"There are people who measure their lives in terms of before and after the eruption," Knappenberger said.

The eruption brought personal grief to the families of the dead. Yesterday, hundres of people came to mark their loss by dedicating a small grove of trees north of the mountain to the campers, loggers, forest workers and others who died.

"It's nice that they have remembered the people who were killed," said Orni, whose brother, Wally Bowers, was killed in the eruption. Bowers was a 42-year-old logger who took on extra weekend work to support his four children and wife, who suffered from terminal cancer, Orni said.

Bowers' relatives had tried to persuade him not to go because of the mountain's recent rumblings, said Orni, of Winlock. But Bowers had faith in the escape plan the timber company had promised.

Only his helmet and saw were found after the blast.

Twenty years later, Orni is still angry that timber companies and state officials allowed loggers so close to the mountain.

"They knew it was bulging, bulging, bulging. They knew it was going to blow," Orni said. "It's only by the grace of God that there weren't 300 or 400 people up here."

Yesterday was also a somber day for Sheryl Bales, whose sister was killed while camping.

Bales was 13 when her sister died in the arms of her boyfriend in a tent along the Green River. Karen Varner and Terry Crall, both 21, were crushed by trees.

"I don't think it's a celebration," she said. "I just want them to remember."

Michael Lienau, a photographer rescued from the mountain after its second eruption, told the group that the most valuable lessons of the past 20 years are human ones.

"It was like a wake-up call," said Lienau, adding that his experience renewed his sense of Christian faith. "Mount St. Helens was doing what it was supposed to do. It just so happened that we got in the way of it."

P-I reporter Angela Galloway can be reached at 360-943-3990 or angelagalloway@seattle-pi.com