National Park After Dark - The Man Who Went Down With His Mountain: Mount St. Helens National Monument

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

The 1980 Mount St. Helen’s eruption was the largest in US history, and claimed over 50 lives. Listen along as we meet one of the victims, Harry Truman, who left his mark on the mountain and whose legacy lives on in the PNW. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Takecharge of your mental health. Listeners get 10% off their first month atbetterhelp.com/NPADFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

aloof and warm, stoic and friendly, simple and complex, persistent in spite of obstacles, and above all, always interesting with any always near. A description of Harry Truman or Mount St. Helens. And who could tell the difference? This was just one of the many letters Harry Truman received during a recognition ceremony for four decades on the shores of Spirit Lake at the feet of Mount St. Helens. A man who planted roots deep in the soil of the volcano. A man who poured his love, sweat, and tears into the lake, who made it his home, and a wilderness

getaway for countless guests who visited the area in search of the tranquility the mountain provided. Gazing upon Mount St. Helens during Harry's heyday in the mid-1900s was indeed tranquil, but nothing lasts forever. Deep under its glaciated peak, gleaming alpine lakes, meadows of Lupin, and seemingly endless swaths of Douglas fir and hemlaw, disaster was brewing. Underneath it all, this is a love story. But as we know, many of the most profound love stories end in tragedy. Harry Truman once proclaimed, I am not leaving. I'm going to stay right here. It's part of me and I'm part of that

mountain. And at the time, no one knew just how true those words would become. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Welcome back, everyone, to National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle. And my name's Cassie. Happy Monday. It's another week. We hope you all had a great weekend.

We hope you got outside. Did some fun adventuring this weekend. It is time for another episode, and we are really excited. Monday.com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters.

Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch.

Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. With that being said, before we get into our grizzly episode that we have today, we have another episode coming out on Patreon, a campfire story. And for this campfire story, it is going to be posted on July 30th. That's a Friday.

So Friday, July 30th, Patreon exclusive episode. And I'm really excited for this episode if you liked the Johnny Lake Ranger episode, which was one of our favorites. It's got a similar vibe to that one. It's not even close to the same story, but it has rescue missions and tragedy, and it's going to be a good episode. So if you're interested, go on to our Patreon.

You can find us from our Instagram National Park After Dark. Click on our Patreon link there, or go to our website, NPADPodcast.com. I'm really excited to hear your story today. So let's go. All right, this episode, I will say I have been looking forward to for so long. I don't want to hype it up or set false expectations for anybody, but this is definitely my favorite episode I have ever researched for the podcast.

Well, you read a whole book for this, right? Yeah, I read an entire book and a lot of other chapters from different books and watched a lot of shows on it, and I'll list all that at the end in case anybody else is interested. but the other reason for this is I love Mount St. Helens. It is definitely my favorite place in the whole Pacific Northwest so far. And I've made it a point to explore a lot of different places here because I moved across the country for it. So I've been out bee bopping around and this is definitely my favorite place.

I've been back multiple times. I already have a few more hiking trips and backpacking trips scheduled there. Can I ask why it's your favorite? Um, that's a great question because actually one of my co-workers asked me that the other day. They're like, what makes it so special? Number one, it has a lot of cool history, which we'll get into today. But number two, it's just so different than anywhere else in this area because of what happened with the eruption and how it changed the landscape. It's not forested like it is pretty much everywhere else here in western Washington.

and it just has so much special charm to it, even though a really horrific event took place there. You know, I kind of relate it to, you know, when some people who love the ocean look at the ocean and they kind of get into like a trance and the ocean's just mesmerizing and it's so beautiful. There's like serenity in that place. Yes, I feel that way here. And I was kind of your own little corner in Washington. I really did. And I always, I keep asking me. And I'm like, can we go back to St. Helens? He's like, we were just there. Yeah. But it's kind of how I feel about the White Mountains in New Hampshire. You know, it's like your own spot. I mean, the White Mountains are huge and there's a lot of different spots. But that's kind of how I feel about whenever I go up there, it's like a special place. Tell us about your spot. I want to know about this morbid story. Because of course, your favorite spot has an extremely morbid story. Naturally. Well, and the other thing is, like I said, I

been wanting to do this episode for a long time and I kind of kept pushing it back because I wanted to do it justice and I wanted to be super thorough but I was thrifting the other day and I found this shirt. I survived Mount St. Helens is what you're wearing right now. 1980 and there is a volcano erupting. So what is this story about? Okay. So a lot of people probably, especially from the Pacific Northwest know this story and the anniversary of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption just kind of passed and we did post something on Instagram about it just quick blurb and a lot of people were like, did you do an episode on this and I missed it? And we were like, oh no, we were just doing it to honor the anniversary. And there were so many people who wrote in and they were

like, I was there or my family was there and we have containers of ask. And we have containers of ash that we keep on the mantle or we have on you know in our living room and i just thought that was the coolest thing ever so if you're out there so this story's going to touch a lot of hearts today i hope so i really hope so all right so let's just go because i know you're antsy this episode is definitely an interesting one for a lot of different reasons and one of them is that we usually describe the landscape of the location we're visiting before we dive into the story which Of course we will be doing today, but this time, we're going to visit Mount St. Helens during two very different times, which means big differences in the environment surrounding the mountain.

Mount St. Helens is one of several active volcanoes in the Cascade Range and is located in southwestern Washington State, lying 52 miles northeast of Portland, 98 miles south of Seattle, and about 50 miles away from Rainier. And similar to Rainier, Mount St. Helens sticks out prominently because it rises thousands of feet above the surrounding landscape, and it has a year-round cover of snow and ice. It was the fifth highest peak in the state, reaching an altitude of 9,677 feet. Nestled within the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, geologically speaking, St. Helens is actually pretty young compared to the other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, formed within the past 40,000 years or so. So it's a baby. It is most famous for its eruption in

1980, but it has been an active volcano far before that. Geologists and volcanologists have recognized four stages of volcanic activity in the mountains past, and while most of the eruptions occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago, some were witnessed by Native peoples. Mount St. Helens got its most recent name by George Vancouver, who surveyed the area in the late 1700s. He named it after his friend, a British diplomat named Lord St. Helens. to a British guy coming over and randomly naming it for his bro back home, Mount St. Helens was known by the Cowlitz tribe as Lovit Lachla, loosely translating as the smoker. Other names recorded for the mountain by native tribes in the area include Fire Mountain and Snow Mountain. It is immensely

significant to the Cowlitz tribe and the Yakima Nation and is involved in creation myths, cultural ideals, and spiritual beliefs. And I thought this was really cool. So Mount St. Helen's was established as a national monument and has been managed by the Park Service since 1982, but it was later recognized and officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its significance as a traditional cultural property based on its associations with cultural practices, traditions, and beliefs, and its importance in social institutions of a living community. And in this case, that community is the Cowlitz and the Yakima peoples. That's very cool. I'm also, it just kind of when you were saying that the name used to be different, it reminds me of Donali and how we changed the name to Mount McKinley and then it got switched back to Donali. So it kind of makes me wonder if maybe one day Mount St. Helens won't have that name anymore. Maybe because Lovid Lachla is a really cool name. I think that's so much better. How you said, some bro back home that you named it over. Their name is. They're named

it after the nature of the mountain itself of the volcano. So that's way cooler. I agree, 100%. And the native peoples may have been the first to live in the shadow of the mountain and to admire her beauty and power, but they certainly weren't the last. Enter Harry Truman. And just a side note, before we get into the meat of the story, it's really going to center around this guy, Harry Truman. and let me tell you he is full of character. I posted some clips of him on our Instagram and Facebook yesterday before this episode came out just so you can watch them and listen to him and watch him his animations as he speaks and just get a sense of his spirit before you listen to the episode because I really think

it'll bring this alive for you. Oh, if you don't have Instagram or Facebook and you're not on social media, good for you. you can check out some of his clips on YouTube because he is everywhere. All right. So before we get into the main story today, and before we get to know Truman himself, we just wanted to cite our sources real quick for the episode. It came from a few different places.

But number one is a book. You know, we love us a good book. We have our book recommendation on our website. Truman of St. Helens, The Man in His Mountain by Shirley Rosen, is the main source for a lot of Truman's, background and a lot of the information that we have on his life before his life on Mount St. Helens and his experience with building his lodge and how the lodge was operated. And the coolest thing

about this book is it was written by his niece. So Shirley spent a lot of time with Truman. She was there, worked at the lodge, obviously had a close relationship with her uncle. So everything that we have, in the beginning of this episode comes from her book. And she did a really beautiful job of bringing to life a different side of Mount St. Helens that a lot of us will never know, especially me. I was born after the Mount St. Helen's eruption, obviously had no chance to see Truman's Lodge in its heyday. But through the book, it felt like I was there. And I really hope that through her writing and through my retelling of parts of her story, you will feel that way as well. So we linked that a couple of different places for you. Number one, our website, number two,

in the show notes, and number three, it is also in the episode description for this episode as well. Other sources of the episode today came from a couple different YouTube videos, the Smithsonian and the US Forest Service and the US Geological Survey put out. Wikipedia was referenced. And the coolest thing about this episode is it really comes to life to YouTube because there is so many different videos of Truman later in life being interviewed by various news outlets. So we really get a good sense of who he was and his character. And that really shines through.

in this episode, or at least I hope it does. And there is, of course, on our Instagram. There are a couple of clips of him as well if you just want a quick 1530 second blip into who he was. So let's get to know him. Harry R. Truman was born in West Virginia in October of 1896. He was the oldest of five children and he, and apparently the other people in his family, can't remember what his middle name was, so he just dropped the R. Later in life, he insisted everyone just call him Truman. His family also had no idea what day in October he was born in, so he chose to celebrate his birthday on October 30th. Wait, so his family didn't know his middle name or his birthday. What kind of parents? What's going on? It was the 1800s. Things were different

back then. They had multiple children. They were just like, all right, I mean, you came around in October and you had an R in your name. We've long forgotten what that was about. Oh my God. Okay. Different time. Different time. So a lot of his family was actually, their main careers were loggers. And at the time in Appalachian Mountains, a lot of logging had stripped a lot of the land of useful timber. And around this time, started hearing whispers and rumors about a brand new state all the way across the country and that state was Washington. A lot of the rumors that they were hearing involved cheap land and lots and lots of forest, which meant timber, which meant big business and promises of maybe some wealth and a new start

somewhere else. So they decided when Truman was around 11 in 1907, to pack up their stuff and head west. And they did so mostly by train, which was a huge, brand new experience for Truman. He had never been outside of the immediate area of his home. He had never seen the Midwest. He'd never seen land that was flat. He was used to the Appalachian Mountains. He had never seen anybody that really looked different from him and his small community. and in the book Shirley actually mentions that he said a couple of things. First, that he was kind of shocked to see Native Americans, which he saw at a lot of the different train stops. And also he said that the land was flatter than pee on a plate.

I think that's exactly what he said. So he was just really shocked to see such a different land. And it's something that's just so interesting now. I mean, we know exactly what America looks like, even if you haven't, haven't already been there. So for him, this is just a brand new world. Hold on. Okay, what? Flatter than pee on a plate.

Mm-hmm. I'm telling you, this guy is like, I love him so much. Flatter than pee on a plate. That's just a... Well, do you get the picture? Yes. So they rode via train for quite a while, and by the ninth day, they reached Washington and the train didn't go any farther. So they got off and they finished the rest of their

trek via good old horse and buggy. They stopped, got some supplies, and made the rest of their journey via horse-drawn wagon. And this is not maybe what you're picturing horse-drawn wagon, just paved roads or dirt roads to your destination. This is a Washington that not many people are familiar with because this is a long time ago, there are no established roads. They are essentially muddy, pothole-ridden little paths in the woods that kind of wind and twist and kind of get you to your destination, but in no way, shape or form are they roads that we are used to today. And a lot of people actually used to carry an axe with them so that when they met another carriage coming, the opposite way, there was nowhere for them to pull over to let the other person by. So they actually

had to chop down trees on the side of the path to make a little space to then pull over. So this is super rugged terrain and not the most pleasant trip, I'm sure. They're off-roading person buggy style. So his family arrived, finally settled down in a small town called Naseka. It's at this point that they start getting going on their homestead. And this is where Harry learned a lot of skills like carpentry. He hunted and fished. He obviously made friends with the small amount of children that were in the area. Again, not a very populated place. It wasn't all just hanging out with friends. At the homestead, there's a lot to do. They raised a lot of their own food. They also made candles and soap and there's just a lot to do around the house to keep up any homestead. So Harry was heavily involved

with a lot of that. And in school, he also was a really good student. He was described as bright. And even though he was good academically, he also was known for being a little bit of a troublemaker. And he was also very popular with the ladies. In her book, Shirley says that Harry's friends describe him as, the daredevil. If he wasn't getting into trouble, he was getting in the way. When he was a teenager, he really fell in love with cars. He would often get a car, fix it up, trash it. Like, I know I've crashed. Um, not crashed. Sorry, Mom. I mean, dented, slightly scuffed some of my cars when I was in high school. But he would get a car, run it ragged. And when that car was of no use, he would get another one in do the same thing all over again. And he had a big love of cars for the rest of his life, but he really found his passion for them starting in high school. So when he wasn't messing around with cars, like I said, he did have quite a few friends. And the cool thing about Shirley's book is she interviewed a lot. Obviously, she had a lot of firsthand personal experience that will describe later,

but she also tracked down and interviewed a lot of Harry's friends that he had from childhood, and they did, um, gave some descriptions of him. So in her book, she says that they describe him as someone who always looked neat and clean and someone who girls adored, a good looking but cocky guy and someone who couldn't talk without cussing. He took a break from school for a year, which wasn't actually that uncommon back in the day, because there was a ton of work to be done around the house. And a lot of younger men quit school or took breaks from school to earn money for their families.

After taking a bit of a break, he came back to high school and graduated in 1917. And his graduating class was a total of seven people. I thought I went to a small school. I graduated with 56 people. That's still so small. But it's not seven. It's not seven, but it wasn't 1917 either. That's true.

The town of Naseka and two others nearby are actually no longer around. Well, they are. They're just underwater. In 1955, Tacoma had permission to build the Mayfield and mossy rock dams on the Cowlitz River. By the late 1960s, all the town's residents were moved. 200 graves were relocated from the local cemeteries and the area was flooded. The place that Harry grew up is now sitting at the bottom of a 23-mile long reservoir. So the year that he graduated, so 1917, there was a big war going on, and that was World War I.

And he actually enlisted, and he was stationed in France. And he enlisted as an electrician and an aeromechanic. So the war, as it does with a lot of people, took him all over the place. He was stationed in multiple places and he wrote home often saying he was still kicking. And he actually found himself aboard a British steamship that was acting as an American transport and it's quite a famous ship and it's called the Tuscania. And that it's famous because in February of 1918 when it was off the shores of Ireland, it was torpedoed and it actually sank.

And initially, Harry's name was not on the list of survivors. So his family was kind of freaking out. And it wasn't until five days later that he finally was accounted for. His name was officially part of the Survivors list, although 166 lives were lost during that sinking. And he did write home in Shirley's book, she quotes his letter. and it says, quote, only five of my friends were lost. I am getting along fine. Don't worry for me. I will be back all right. So he seemed a little nonchalant about it. He kind of just pulled himself up by his bootstraps and kept going. He's still young. He's 22. And at that time, he learned to fly planes and he kept them in shape for combat reasons. Like I said, he was an arrow mechanic, so he knew his stuff. And later in his life, he looked back. He looked back. He was. He looked back. He was. He was. He was aero mechanic. He looked back. on his time in the war and he really seemed to look fondly upon it through his storytelling. But there were people who knew him that said he did come back slightly changed.

And instead of being bright, animated, and charismatic, he seemed to be a little bit more reserved and a little bit more of kind of like a loner, which is understandable war changes people, especially World War I, I can't even imagine. And he went on to live quite the exciting life. So in 1919, he came back home after the war, but he didn't stay for a very long time. He went up to Alaska in search of gold. The gold rush is going on during this time. And he wrote a letter to his aunt again, quoted by Shirley, saying, in part, not the whole letter,

but part of it, he says, quote, I have been to most every part of it. Alaska and it certainly is a wonderful country and there is great big opportunities here. He didn't strike it rich, won't want, won. So he came back home after two years trying to strike it big in Alaska. And at this point, he's back in Washington. It's the early 1920s and his life kind of flipped up again because he got married and had a daughter. He named her Betty. And unfortunately Truman's father was killed in a logging accident. So that's super sad. logging such a dangerous, dangerous job. Speaking of jobs, Harry got one of his own in Chehalis at a Ford dealership as a mechanic, so using some of the skills he learned in the war and his time in the service,

as Truman tends to get, he got bored and he kind of perked his ears up a little bit when he heard rumors of gold again. And this time it was not in Alaska, it was in Nevada. So he went there, bopped over there for a little bit, again, didn't find any gold, so he came back to Washington. Here we go, another profession. He is kind of a jack of all trades. So soon he heard whisperings of a job that involved cars, taking some risks, and booze. So all of those swirl together creates bootlegging. At this point in time, we're right in the middle of.

prohibition and Truman ended up transporting liquor that was smuggled into San Francisco and he was running it up the coast into the state of Washington. And like I mentioned, he was a little bit of a ladies man. Before in his school days, that kind of seems to have carried into his adult life because in Shirley's book, she does mention that he liked some of the locations better than the others for delivering this bootlegged booze. And some of those locations just happen to be prostitution houses in Aberdeen and Hope William. I wonder why. Truman, you dog. Well, you did say that he was a troublemaker at the very beginning of this.

But he's also married. Oh, yeah. Scandal. Oof. And as we know throughout history, the bootlegging business kind of runs thick with gangsters and mobsters. and some of them, it seems like Truman worked for in California. And later on in life, when he's reflecting back in this time, he does say to one of his friends, quote, things got hotter than hell.

I got in trouble with some big guys. So it seems as if he did get into some trouble, or he was at least worried about some of the gangsters in California. So he fled that area and he made sure to bring his sick. submachine gun with him, so he was not messing around. And at this point, him and his family owned a little gas station, and they called it Harry Sudden Services in the town of Chehalis. Meanwhile, he was still selling bootleg moonshine and whiskey on the side, so he didn't completely give up the booze altogether. But he did shut down the shop pretty abruptly in the 1920s when he heard that the men that he was nervous about and running from in California that they knew where he was and they were planning on

coming after him. Well, he did name his shop Harry. That wasn't, I mean, if you're trying to run from some scary people, maybe not use your first name. That is such a good point that I did not even think about until right the second. It's like neon sign, Harry's sudden services, I'm here. How did they find me? Well, he was scared. So again, he wanted to be. He wanted to be. He wanted to wanted to get out of there, so he packed up all his stuff, shut down his business, grabbed his wife and daughter, and they went somewhere far, far away from the gangsters in California, somewhere that he didn't think they could ever find him. And that was to the wilderness of Mount St. Helens on the shores of Spirit Lake. Spirit Lake tucked away at 3,200 feet on the north

side of Mount St. Helens was perfect for Truman. So Spirit Lake is an alpine lake and it's tucked away at 3,200 feet on the north side of Mount St. Helens. And for Truman, this was ideal. He carved out his own little piece of shoreline and Spirit Lake is about 12 miles long and he started up operating a pretty small log cabin that served as a gas station. It rented boats. It had some groceries in it and he partnered with a man named Jack Nelson so they shared this business together and soon after starting it up Nelson and Truman kind of split and went their separate ways and Nelson went across the lake to start his own lodge and at that point Truman started building a larger log home on the north fork of the Toolt River and again going back to the road system from earlier in the episode

this is a time that accessing this area is really, really difficult because there is no roads. And where they are, they're not the greatest. So most of the year, the area that they are now in is snowed in most of the year. And there are two months out of the year, which are July and August, that you can get up to the area of the lodge pretty easily. But the rest of the year is very difficult. And due to the location, there is no school. schools and he has a daughter, Betty, she needs to go to school. There's none on the mountain. So she was sent to live with other family back in the town of Nisika and his wife, Helen, stayed with

Truman at first but ended up following suit and went with Betty back down the mountain. And sadly they divorced after she realized that the lonely and somewhat isolated existence up in the wilderness of Mount St. Helens, that life just wasn't really for her. And while life on St. Helens may have been isolated, it wasn't always lonely and especially for Truman. He had a lot of friends in the Forest Service. A lot of them actually became really good lifelong friends as well. And they worked on the over million acres of land that included Spirit Lake, as well as different wildernesses that we know today. So there's the Spirit Lake area. So there's the Spirit Lake area. Mount St. Helens itself. There was Mount Adams, Mount Margaret, and the Goats Rocks Wilderness as well.

And Truman managed to continue bootlegging and that brought him in extra cash and he stashed it away like a little squirrel, tucked it away in different areas around the mountain. And the moonshine that he was making, he labeled Panther Pea and he would sell it to members of the Forest Service who came by his lodge after work. And he would sell it. for $1.50 for every 10 ounces, which is actually fairly expensive if you're looking at what the average forest service member made an entire day, which was only about $3. He also had some neighbors. Some of them included staff that were staffed at the fire lookout on Mount St. Helens, even though that was removed in the mid-1920s. There was also a YMCA camp on Spirit Lake.

and even though Truman liked the staff he wasn't super fond of kids and i think that's putting it a little bit lightly Shirley says that he used to refer to them as little buggers so you kind of get the vibe there and there was of course the spirit lake campground as well and he was not a fan of the campground or really anyone who visited and he usually referred to them as squatters and he didn't really like the camp because, number one, it's competition for the lodge that he was trying to run. And he was very business-focused. He was such a businessman. He always had a sharp eye out for competitors, things that could potentially steal business

away from him. He was always very vigilant of that. And in Shirley's book, she has a sample of his rates. And of course, everything's relative. The prices seem extremely cheap today, obviously. but I just thought it was really cool, a little nice piece of history. So back in the 1920s, late 1920s, he had cabins for rent. For two people per day, it was $2.50.

Or if you wanted to rent a motorboat, it was only $7 a day. So let's fast forward to the 1930s, mid-1930s. He's 39 at the time. He remarried to another woman named Marjorie Brown. Marjorie had a daughter named Joan. and just like with Betty, she was also sent away for most of the year for school, as there are still no school up in the Spirit Lake area. But she did come back for summers, and she worked throughout different seasons at the lodge,

and she actually became really good friends with Betty. And she was known to not really like Truman too much. She didn't really like the way that he treated her mom. They always kind of seemed to be getting into little spats and arguments, and Truman was known to have kind of a sharper tongue, and Marjorie, I guess, had kind of a short temper. So that together didn't really seem to mesh well. And there are times that Joan remembered Truman throwing Marge into the lake after they had disagreement. So I guess that's one way to settle it.

So they were married for a couple years, and in the fall of 1937, in the fall of 1937, Truman was playing poker with his friends at the lodge that he built, and a log from the fireplace rolled out onto their rug, which was a big, bare-skin rug, and the whole place just went up in flames and burned the entire thing to the ground. And he took that winter as an opportunity to really rethink his business and his building plans and to bring back the resort to a bigger and better version of what it was before. He kind of used this as a springboard for a bigger vision. And with the help of two of his friends, he did just that. Throughout the winter and the following spring, they built everything by hand. And obviously it took time, but after a few months, the doors of the brand new and improved Mount St. Helens Lodge were opened for business in 1939. So I'm also going to post by now.

I'll have posted a lot of pictures on Instagram, but this lodge was beautiful and all the different cabins. So just as like kind of a picture for those of you who don't have the visual right now, it's not like a cabin. It is a multi-level lodge that has multiple rooms, kitchen, dining area, etc. There's all small other little cabins around that people can rent. There's a dock with a bunch of different boats for rent. for the day he had horses for rent to go and you can just take a horse and go backpacking and trail riding

through the mountains like this was a big deal and him and two friends built this new lodge by hand that's wild do you know is it still standing today well you'll find out this is where a lot of shirley's personal experience comes in now because she worked at the lodge for a couple of seasons and she goes into great detail obviously the book does way a way better job than this is so much more in depth so definitely pick it up if you want to know more about what life was like at mount st helen's lodge but she kind of describes a typical busy season which was at its peak in the 1940s and 50s so truyn would wake up super early he was often bopping around ready to go by six in the morning and he she describes his favorite breakfast which i had to include because it is just a

little it's a little odd um so it was cow brains and scrambled eggs with a glass of buttermilk on the side which is absolutely disgusting wait two eggs cal brains and scrambled eggs i didn't hear the cow brains part i just heard i was like i guess like i'm not a really big fan of eggs either so I was like yeah yeah ew gross and a glass of buttermilk like I've never had buttermilk I guess but like it just sounds like a thick I don't like milk either so I like yeah me neither I think almond milk's great but yeah I feel like buttermilk is like cream almost yeah just down in some brains and cream for breakfast, but hey, it worked for him. And he needed all the energy he could get because work the lodge was endless. The main lodge would serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day,

which had to be prepared, cooked, and served to the guests. The multi-level lodge also housed guests, but most of them stayed in those cabins I was talking about earlier across the 54-acre property, which all needed their linens cleaned, dishes done, and the floors mopped, which which was quite the task. They didn't have running water in the early years there, and they had to hand transport all the water from a nearby spring. Many of those tasks were assigned to family members, like Shirley Rosen, his niece, who worked there during the summers.

But Truman was heavily involved in everything at the lodge, and often gave boat tours himself to guests around the lake, pointing out his favorite parts of the landscape. People constantly saw him on working on projects throughout the property, all the while with his dog boy and his cat Gilbert trotting alongside him. Boat rental was a main draw of the lodge. And keeping up with the rental log, cleaning and maintaining the lodge's motorboats, canoes, rowboats, all of that was such a big daily task.

And like I said, there was also horses there who were rented out to different fishermen and backpackers and adventurers. And we all know how labor-intensive keeping horses are. So there was a lot to be done. but don't think for one second that Truman was all work and no play. As soon as families finished their dinners and gobbled up the Huckleberry pie for dessert, the lodge would take on a different vibe. Prohibition may have been over at this point, but there was still strict laws surrounding booze in the state. For instance, women couldn't sit at the bar, you couldn't walk or stand with a drink in your hand,

and no liquor could be sold on Sunday or past midnight on any day. and Truman had an outlook on life that rules were meant to be broken. So, he'd kick out all the miners from the main floor of the lodge, pour himself his favorite drink, which was Coca-Cola with a splash of shinleys, which is a type of whiskey. He'd lock the front doors, turn off the lights of the beer signs, like the big Rainier beer sign that illuminated the front porch, and would kill half of the main lights.

Such would begin the private parties, full of drinking, laughter, and dancing well into dawn. Forest Service crews, loggers, and road crews mingled with the guests throwing the rules to the wind on those warm summer nights in the shadow of Mount St. Helens. Truman's marriage with Marge fell by the wayside, and after years of separation, they finalized their divorce in 1947. Despite his success in business, Truman seemed to be unlucky in love, until along came Eddie. Truman and Eddie met in 1946, when he was still technically married to Marge. Truman was actually dating, well, it said courting. He was courting Eddie's sister initially, but quickly set his eyes on Eddie.

She was described by everyone as beautiful inside and out, who was just the woman Truman needed. She was smart, loving, and supportive, but would be quick to put Truman in his place. Their relationship was full of love and a lot of playful teasing. Friends of Truman even described his roughness being smoothed out once he met Eddie. They were thick as thieves and balanced their romantic relationship and business relationship with ease. They enjoyed trips on horseback through the back country, and they both loved the seclusion that the wilderness brought. Eddie tolerated the harsh winter conditions with a good spirit. She often wrote in her journal of the winter conditions and how difficult they were.

While they would get occasional skiers passing through, Eddie and Truman, along with a handful of other local residents and friends in the area, spent a lot of the year alone. Snow slides often blocked the roadways, making travel impossible for stretches of time, freezing temperatures for months on end, and snow reaching well above seven feet most of the winter was just the way it was for Truman and Eddie. But Eddie was a trooper and kept busy with tasks around the lodge. compared to the summer months, cash flow to the lodge was very minimal because they didn't have guests coming. And yeah, they would sell the occasional meal or drink to people and skiers passing through and different forest crew members, but it was nothing like it was in the summer. And if there was one thing that always rang true about Truman, he loved his money. And in the winter, he came up with a very creative way to make it. For years, there had been rumors of a hairy,

ape-like creature roaming the forest of Mount St. Helens. One of the canyons in the area was named ape canyon after a notorious encounter between a group of miners and several of the creatures in 1924. Several years later, a group of Boy Scouts also supposedly ran into and were attacked by these creatures. And whether or not Truman was a Bigfoot believer himself or not is unclear, but what was clear as day

was his belief in what stories of Bigfoot could do for his business. He helped that legend along a little bit by strapping hand-carved wooden, oversized feet onto his shoes, would head up into the mountains after a fresh snowfall, and lay tracks in the areas where he knew skiers would see them. So he was egging people on. That's hilarious. He was like, Bigfoot's up here. Look at it.

You see those tracks. People do that today. I've seen documentaries where people do that today. and they put on the, they put on like these giant feet shoes and walk around in the mud or something just to mess with people. Yeah, but he was doing it for money because he knew that this legend was a big tourism draw. And he wanted to put these prints in areas he knew people would see them near his lodge and it would draw people to the area. He was smart. Smart, very smart.

And during these slower times, Truman and Eddie also did try and make time to get a while. away from the lodge, they would go to places like Death Valley. They went to Arizona and Mexico, Washington, D.C., New Orleans. And when they traveled, the rough and tough backcountry Truman kind of turned into a different type of guy. He really liked the best of the best of everything as far as clothes and cars and top-notch service. So when he was traveling, he expected the best while he was on vacation. And while they did travel a lot, he was pretty selective about it as most of their trips were taken during the downtime at the lodge.

They didn't want to be away during peak season. And even though they did travel from time to time, they actually were rarely in attendance to different family events if the lodge was in the midst of the busy season. So throughout their relationship, Eddie was truly Truman's Rock and she was a big source of happiness for him in his life. And one that he thought he wouldn't have to live without. She was much younger than he was by about 13 years. And he just always kind of assumed that she would outlive him, that he would pass away

before him. But he was wrong. On September 7th of 1975, Eddie passed away very suddenly in their bed at the lodge and she was only 66. This was a huge shock to everyone because she seemed to be. and perfect spirits and health other than feeling kind of under the weather the night before, but nothing dramatic. And her death absolutely shattered Truman.

He was really rough and tough on the exterior, but obviously with any sort of death, especially with someone so close to you, as expected, he kind of crumbled. And he was rarely seen ever being emotional, but as soon as Eddie died, he seemed to be crying all the time. He was always really sad. Anytime someone brought her up, you could definitely see that it was crushing him. Her service was held pretty soon after her death, and it just reinforced how much she was loved not only by Truman, but by everyone around her. The funeral home was just overflowing with different people and gifts and flowers, which was one of Eddie's favorite things. She loved flowers. And at the funeral, and the

the service. Truman seemed to accept sympathy cards and words of sympathy pretty well. He seemed to hold it together for the most part. As he got home to the lodge that they shared together, everything kind of changed. This was a place that Truman and Eddie spent a lot of time together, some of the best years of his life. And he just imagined seeing her there picking up the laundry from the cabins like she used do. She would always smile at him and while she was cooking his cow brains and eggs and just giving him sass, putting him back into his place and he missed that. In Shirley's book, she says that one of Truman's friends remembers just how Eddie's death severely affected him and they said, quote, he dearly loved her. When she died, it just destroyed him. He quit caring about what happened to him

after she was gone after Eddie passed away. It was just like it blowed the wind right out of the old bugger sales. If he wasn't so damn tough, it would have killed him right away. So he kept going. He kept running the lodge on his own, although it was kind of at a fraction of the pace that he once did it at. His friends and the guests that kept coming back year after year for their love of the lodge kind of noticed a change in him and the lodge in the property itself. Because remember, for so long he took so much pride in the property, was always up and working on things, but for a while after Eddie's passing,

he had a really difficult time keeping up with everything, and things seemed to fall a little bit by the wayside. And a few years later, when he was reflecting on his wife and his wife's death, he was quoted in Shirley's book as saying, I've kind of let the place go to hell since then. Eddie and I had spent 37 years loving, working, fighting, laughing, dancing, and really living on our mountain and lake. Go look at the old pictures I have of her on the wall over there.

She was some woman. And even though he was a little downtrodden, he didn't lose his bunk and still ran people off his property. There was another resort on the lake called the Spirit Lake Lodge, and he referred to it as Hippieville. and when guests that kind of rubbed Truman the wrong way at his lodge, for whatever reason that may have been. It could have been that they were dressed some way that Truman didn't like or said something that Truman didn't like. It didn't really take much to rub Truman the wrong way, it seemed. And he would just refuse them to stay with him and he would send them down to the Spirit Lake Lodge. So for being so competitive at times, it seems like other times he just wanted to get rid of certain people.

He also played practical jokes on his nieces and nephews that came to visit and who worked during the summer months. And even when he was older, in his 80s, he would roast other older people saying that they were no use and just full of complaints and aches and pains. And as an older man himself, a lot of his closest and dearest friends had also passed away like Eddie had. and his life at Spirit Lake was beginning to look a lot different than it did at its peak in the 40s and 50s. And towards the end of his life and towards the end of our story is when he began becoming friends with a younger man named Rob. And despite their new friendship, relatively new friendship, the differences in their personality, their age, there was just a lot of things that didn't seem like a normal friendship, but it worked. and Rob was actually one of the last people with Truman up until the end.

Rob Smith at the time was only 20 when he started managing the Spirit Lake Lodge, aka what Truman nicknamed Hippieville. Rob had dreams of taking it over from his parents. He had always loved the outdoors and Spirit Lake was very special to him in particular. And aside from Truman, Rob was actually one of a hand. of other people that were there year-round as residents in the area at that time. Rob was known as really kind and compassionate and was kind of a stark contrast to Truman, who was nicknamed the Kramundjan, but they jelled together and their friendship really blossomed.

They became really close. They did a lot of work around the lodge. They were seen in town running errands together. They spent a lot of downtime together, just shooting the shit, talking about life at the lake, reflecting on their experiences there. And although Rob wasn't Truman's first friend, he most certainly may have been his last. Sharp left turn real quick. If you have seen the Titanic and are a big fan, such as I am, there's a scene in the beginning of the movie where there's a man explaining the logistics of what happened to cause the sinking of the ship.

And he's talking to Rose. and in that scene, Rose is listening, but when he finishes, he says, oh, pretty cool, right? And she goes, thank you for that forensic analysis, Mr. Boudin. Of course, the experience of it was somewhat different. And that is exactly how I imagined what happens next. There's a geologic sequence of events of what happened to Mount St. Helens. But then there's the personal experiences, what Truman experienced. From Truman's perspective, Mount St. Helens wasn't going anywhere.

The mountain had been quiet for over 120 years, but that began to change in March of 1980, starting with an earthquake near Mount St. Helens, and more and more to follow. Avalanches began sliding down the mountain sides, and ash began to plume from the top. Despite the growing concern from authorities, Truman dismissed them. His adamant stance on staying on the mountain earned him a lot of attention from the press. News crews from around the state were evading roadblocks and even helicoptering in just for the chance to speak with the man of the mountain himself. He made national news and his face was on the front page of the New York Times and he was interviewed by countless organizations including National Geographic. His message was crystal clear. He was not budging. He said,

I've walked that mountain for 50 years. I know her. If it erupted with lava, it's not going to get me at Spirit Lake. Those geologists might know something about the inside of a mountain, but I know her contours. Besides, if I left this place, it would worry me to death. If this place is going to go, I want to go with it. Because if I lost it, it would kill me in a week anyway. His colorful storytelling, no bullshit attitude, and rough mountain man appearance was a hit. with the media. But that attention was a pain for law enforcement. The forbidden red zone set up around the mountain was established to keep people out of danger, but Truman was too big of a draw. Despite the spewing volcano, avalanches, and earthquakes, people were constantly disregarding those roadblocks for their chance to see and speak with Truman. He entertained them in his home, gave them colorful interviews, and lots of content for papers and television. It got so, bad that finally law enforcement threw their hands up and decided that in order to reduce the public safety risk, they were going to bring Truman to the media.

They held a press conference at a nearby school. He spoke and entertained the crowd for over an hour with stories of his time on Spirit Lake and his thoughts on the current state of affairs. It was here that Truman revealed, even though he wasn't leaving, that didn't mean he wasn't scared. When speaking of the earthquakes, he said, we had quite the the show yesterday morning, boys. It rolled my bed clear across the room, and I guess I decided it was time to get up. It woke me up around 5 a.m. It's a thrill, a strange sensation, and I'd

love it if I wasn't scared to death. It's also worth noting that Truman did have somewhere to evacuate to if he wanted. The lodge was definitely his pride and joy and somewhere he spent a lot of time, but he and Eddie had inherited a piece of property in a town a few hours away from the lodge, and they one day planned to retire there together, but he just didn't want to go. He believed that the mountain had done its worst over the last few weeks. In his words, quote, the mountain had shot its wad and it hadn't hurt my place a bit, but those goddamn geologists with hair down to their butts wouldn't pay no attention to Truman. He thought that even if the mountain did erupt, his position on the lake would not be affected. So he kind of just saw the geologists and scientists as just

these hippies that didn't know what they were talking about and he's been there his whole life, kind of just like a stubborn old man kind of kind of guy. Yeah, yeah. And it is kind of clear that he did take into consideration what they were saying in the warnings and he was obviously scared. He was living through earthquakes and he saw what was happening on the mountain. It was very obvious that it wasn't dormant, but he wasn't willing to take their word for it 100%. Truman had been somewhat of a recluse, his whole,

whole life. He sought solitude and privacy in the backcountry and was extremely selective to those that he opened up to and let into his life. Yet here he was, suddenly front and center in the spotlight entertaining an entire country. Those who knew him best like his friend Chuck Tone from the Forest Service felt that this sudden thriving off of publicity was his way of letting nervousness out. And he fell underneath this brave facade, he was scared. He said that he was in a different frame of mind during that period of time during the eruption. He was afraid, and like you do when you're afraid, you talk and boast more. Truman was stressed by the conflicting reports of what Mount St. Helens would do. Despite the roadblocks and the evacuation plans, not all scientists were

convinced that Mount St. Helens would blow. Don Mullenew, a geologist with the U.S. Geological survey, told reporters that if the mountain did erupt, it would be a quote-unquote small erupting event, with most of the effect limited to the slopes of the mountain. Plus, there was a period of time that all this commotion stopped. For weeks, there was no significant action from the volcano at all, which only confused the situation more. During this time, Truman spent days going from property to property around the lake, ensuring that everyone's lodges and homes were locked and secured. Vandalism and theft were always on the forefront of his mind, and he had quite a few run-ins and

with looters in the past, and he wasn't about to let that happen on his watch, especially feeling that the public would take advantage of the vacant properties during the evacuation and the red zone ban around the mountain. I can kind of understand, I mean, anything in the scientific community, it's always up for debate, generally speaking. There's always two sides. There's always two schools of thought, and especially for a mountain that hasn't erupted in 120 years, this isn't something that, geologists and scientists and volcanologists knew what was happening so for Truman I'm sure it was very confusing especially having someone for the US Geologic Survey saying

it's not going to be a big deal but yet people are evacuating running for the hills you know it's just a confusing time yeah I can see how especially when you're hoping that it's not going to happen if one person is like you're fine it's not going to happen and they have credibility behind it you're like okay good that was the validation I've been looking at for, everything's fine. It backed him up a little bit. Truman's friend Rob was with him often and witnessed firsthand the lodge shaking, dishes crashing, and furniture moving across the floors. He would stay overnight sometimes, but always slept downstairs and made sure that his truck was facing down the driveway in case he had to leave quickly. Another one of Truman's friends named George kept him company as well,

staying late into the night reading Truman letters from the hundreds that poured in from all over the country. Something else that was changed in Truman during this time was his attitude towards children. Ficky Weiss was a fifth grade teacher at Indian Hill School in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and her class wrote to Truman. Some of the letters read, Do you ever feel when you go to bed that you won't wake up? What's it like living on a volcanic mountain? I think it's not safe up there.

You should leave until it. is because your life is more important than any house or lodge ever is. He was so moved by these words, he actually cried when he read them, and even sent the class containers of ash spewing from the mountain. He didn't stay on the mountain the entire time that all of these small eruptions and earthquakes were happening, though. He flew off the mountain on May 14th to visit a local elementary school in Oregon, and he met with over 100 kids that were holding. holding, we love you Truman's signs, and we're cheering his name. That's so sweet.

I know. Breaks my heart. It's really nice. May 17th was a warm and sunny spring day. A caravan of property owners from around Spirit Lake were granted access by the governor into the red zone and were escorted to their properties to collect personal items. They passed Truman's lodge and he was standing on the front lawn. The only resident allowed to stay.

He appeared quite happy and even had the sprinklers running to provide. prepare his lawn for the upcoming busy summer season. A patrolman asked Truman if he'd like to leave, only to get shut down once again. Rob and his girlfriend Kathy were with Truman that day, but packed up to head out around 6 o'clock that night. As they were leaving, Truman leaned into the window, discussing plans for them to return the next day. Stiff upper lip kid, he said to Rob. They wave to each other as they pulled down the driveway, glancing at Truman from the rearview mirror. the last time anyone would see him alive. Now, let's look at what was happening in the mountain

while all of this with Truman was unfolding. Back it up to March 20th, 1980. Seismographs at this University of Washington picked up an earthquake about 20 miles north of the mountain, measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale. Three days later, on March 23rd, earthquakes were being recorded at up to 40 an hour, and we're getting closer and closer to the mountain,

and avalanches began tumbling down the sides of St. Helens. On March 27th, magma rose and began coming into contact with icy meltwater. As we talked about before, the scientific community was torn about if the mountain would blow at all. Those who believed it would expected a vertical eruption, affecting only a limited area close to the mountain. On April 8th, only two days after that geologist Dan Mulal, had said that the probability was very low in terms of a big eruption occurring. Two craters on the summit of St. Helens merged into one giant gash, over 1,700 feet across and 800 feet deep. The longest eruption yet occurred that day as well, lasting from

8 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. But then, silence. For two weeks, the mountain went quiet. Scientists were alarmed by aerial photography findings. On April 24th, They revealed, after comparing photos of the mountain from a month before, a massive bulge had grown on the north face at the head of the Forsyth Glacier. It was 300 feet out and two-thirds of a mile wide and growing at a rate of 5 feet every single day. Soon, the earthquakes began again. On May 7th, a major ash eruption spewed from the summit and through the following days, earthquakes of 5.0 on the Richter scale shook the entire area. The observation camp at the Timberline, managed by the U.S. Geological Survey, was abandoned due to the increase in danger and moved six miles away where volcanologist David Johnson took post. On May 12th, an earthquake triggered a massive avalanche straight down the north face of the mountain.

At 832, on May 18, 1980, a massive earthquake caused the bulge on the mountain to collapse, removing a mile-wide chunk of the north-face. of the mountain, Truman's side of the mountain. With an energy equivalent to 1,500 Hiroshima atomic bombs, rock and superheated gas shot from the volcano at 400 miles an hour. 3,500 feet of mountain disappeared instantly. Expanding magma within the volcano sent thousands of tons of blazing hot rock and gas shooting up into the atmosphere. The ash plume rose, 15 miles into the sky, choking out the sunlight. Soon after the initial eruption and landslide, 46 billion gallons of icy meltwater poured down the mountain. Called a Lahar, it became a tsunami of destruction, oblitering everything in its path. The largest landslide in recorded history,

barreled into the valley below, some of which directly into Spirit Lake, causing an 860-foot tidal wave. The eruption continued throughout the afternoon. Ash cloud forced towns and cities up to 300 miles away into emergency shutdowns. And within two weeks, the ash made its way around the entire globe. The eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, is officially the deadliest, most destructive, and most costly volcanic eruption in U.S. history, which claimed 57 lives. Truman and his 16 cats, the lodge he built by hand with friends that was home to him and Eddie, that hosted prohibition parties, where guests from all over the country came to make memories that was full of love and laughter and community, now lie under 180 feet of debris and 90 feet of water. Wow. When I knew this was a volcanic eruption, but I didn't even think of the effects of it being wintertime. Or not winter, but just the snow. And it melting in that heat and how much water that would actually cause. So when you said that there's a tsunami and a tidal wave, those are two things that I had never pictured in a volcanic eruption. Yeah, well, what happened? So, because I've watched several videos on this.

What happened is this bulge was growing and growing, all this pressure was building up over time. Because remember, they first started seeing these earthquake and some activity from the mountain in March. Yeah. And it lasted through the end of March, in through April, and then it exploded in May. So during all this time, it's building and building and building. And finally, when it erupts, it doesn't erupt in that vertical way that geologists were predicting. it didn't shoot straight up. It shot out.

And the north side of the mountain blew out, caused a landslide. Part of that landslide went into Spirit Lake. The landslide that hit Spirit Lake caused the lake water as well as the snow melt to cause a huge tsunami. Well, you said 3,000 feet of the mountain was demolished. That's an entire mountain in northern New Hampshire. That's insane. Just I had it all in my head of what was happening. Wow.

It's insane. And then the ash covered the entire globe. Yeah. And the pictures are absolutely insane. And there's, I'll talk about it at the end. I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but there's a lot of different YouTube videos. If you don't want to watch a whole movie on it,

there's a lot of cool YouTube videos that are like 15, 20 minutes and link that have footage of, you know, this was something that was well. well documented. People knew this was about to happen. So they were ready for an explosion. So there's footage of this happening. Pictures, aerial photography of this explosion and the ash plume. I mean, it looks giant because it's huge above an already giant mountain. But when you read the numbers, 15 miles straight up into the atmosphere is insane. Yeah. It's wild to hear about things that are affecting the globe because actually kind of separate from this story but kind of similar. I was on Facebook or whatever the other day in a article popped up that said the haze and smoke

from fires is reaching from the west coast to the east coast. And the day before I read this article, I was driving and I live up in Vermont in the mountains and it was so hazy. And I remember last year at the end of the summer, I remember seeing the haze come in and I was driving. I was like, I wonder if this is the wildfires from the west. And the next day, I saw an article that said that the haze was that. So it's just wild how something so far away actually affects thousands of miles away on the planet. Oh yeah. Everything's so interconnected. And they're in some of this footage. There's footage of people, like I said, up to 300 miles away, there was emergency shutdowns.

This wasn't just some ash in the sky. You had to wear masks to breathe. You couldn't drive because it was blackout conditions. Ash was covering everything. Surfaces of, you know, your house, your car, your roads. There's footage of horses and stuff shaking off all the ash hundreds of miles away. Like Idaho, Montana, you know, it's just wild. All the air quality is affected.

Even when I looked, well, when I saw the haze the other day, I checked my phone because on the weather app, that shows you the air quality, and it always says good around here. And I looked, and the other day, it said moderate, and it said moderate on the higher end. I'm like, I've never seen that here before. A stone memorial located at Hofsted Bluffs Visitor Center, which has sadly since closed, stood proudly as Truman. Words from his sister Jerry read, I can see a smile on his face, for he lived and died in his own special place. All he would ask of the Lord for his sake, is a place in eternity like Spirit Lake. And that is the story of Harry Truman of Mount St. Helens.

If you're as inspired by the mountain as Harry was, you can visit it for yourself and maybe fall in love just like he did. It will be much different than the landscape Harry experienced, but it definitely has new magic to explore. So let's take a look at Mount St. Helens now. The eruption caused mass devastation miles around, obviously, But seven years after the eruption, the U.S. Forest Service reopened the mountain for climbing, which is wild because the amount of destruction and mass devastation that this eruption caused, seven years is a long time, but it also seems very short compared to the biggest, most destructive volcanic event in U.S. history. Yeah, and then they're like, yeah, I know all this happened, but go up.

Go on up. It's fine now. Yeah, remember all that footage you saw, all the ash. everything it destroyed. You can just walk right up to it. It's fine. It's settled now. Come on down. I'd feel better about doing it now than I would have seven years post explosion. It has since closed periodically due to renewed activity because remember, this is active volcano. And accidents, there has been a few accidents there. For example, in 2010, a climber fell into the crater from the rim and passed away. And like we were talking about, you can climb Mount St. Helens year round.

And it's actually recommended as a first mountain summit for climbers because even though it's pretty, it's a challenging hike. It's not a walk in the park, but it doesn't involve technical climbing like mountains like rainy or do. So it's recommended as kind of an introduction to summiting mountains, which is really cool. And a coworker and I actually wanted to do it this summer, but they require from, I think May to November, you need to reserve. They only do 100 a day. There's only 100 people a day that are allowed, and they're all taken up. So maybe we'll go in the fall.

Yeah, because they're trying to avoid mass casualties when it explodes. They're like, well, it was only 100 people instead of the thousands that would have been there if we didn't have these permits. Yeah, maybe that's part of it. The area surrounding the mountain is also an amazing place for hiking, backpacking, and biking. And like I said, this is my favorite part of the Pacific Northwest. It also has my favorite trail I've ever hiked. And it ironically is Harry's Ridge Trail, named after the big guy himself. And I hiked it not knowing his story beforehand.

So now looking back on all the photos I have of it is really special. So it winds around the north side of the mountain. And you can see the crater of the summit and the large swaths of land that are starting to regrow trees and different vegetation. and it winds over to overlook Spirit Lake, which is still partially covered with trees. And I feel so, looking back on it, it feels so stupid. But when I went a couple months ago, we, you know, overlooked the lake and saw all the trees. And in my mind, I was like, wow, that's a lot of trees on the lake. Like, what?

Is that from Blowdown? Like, yeah, no shit. A huge volcano. mile away just erupted like didn't put two and two together at all i mean i did but i was just like yeah it was so far long ago like what are they still doing there um so it didn't really click in my mind but after i researched it so when the eruption caused that giant landslide that came into the lake and caused that huge tsunami what happened is that water plummeted into all the surrounding forests around the lake and then when that water receded it brought back with it about one million trees wow

that is crazy a million a million and what happened is all those old growth trees got sucked back onto the lake and during the initial flyovers that scientists and geologists were doing surveying the land and the effects of the eruption they thought that spirit lake was gone They thought that it had been covered, obliterated, no longer there, but it was there. It was just under all of these trees floating on its surface. That's crazy. So they went to remove these trees or whatever and then discovered the lake underneath it? No.

So they haven't removed any of the trees. So what happened is a lot of them, I'll try and I'll look through my camera. I know I have a lot of pictures of this hike because it was so pretty. and there are several of Spirit Lake and all the trees. What's happening is there's different species of trees that got pulled into the lake. And depending on the amount of resin that the trees have in them, which differs from species to species, causes some of them to float longer than others. So over time, the heavier, denser ones with the less resin have sunk to the bottom.

So all these trees are still in the lake. They're just at the bottom. And the ones that have more resin have stayed floating and you can see them today if you hike around Spirit Lake. A little bit of history just right there. And obviously the lake is a little bit different for that reason and others. When Harry lived on it, it was 200 feet lower than it is right now. So the eruption caused the level of the lake to rise 200 feet. Oh, the level of the water was 200 feet.

So how deep is the lake? I have no idea now. I don't know. 200 feet's a lot. Yeah, well, if you think about it, I mean, all that landslide material and everything is just race the level. The recovery of the area around St. Helens has been referred to as a living laboratory. As scientists are watching firsthand the rebound of plant, insect, and animal species and how ecosystems respond and recover from major disturbances.

Small animals like chipmunks and deer mice fared way better than larger animals, and were able to survive actually in pretty good numbers. But larger animals like elk, bear, mountain goat, and cougars couldn't outrun the blast, and their populations kind of plummeted. But they have all since returned to the area in the years following, and all of those species are now found in the blast zone of Mount St. Helens. Scientists are surprised, but happy at the rate at which the area is coming back to life. So let's enjoy Mount St. Helens while we can, because it is predicted to blow again,

and future eruptions are predicted to likely be even larger than the 1980 eruption. Because the current configuration of the lava dome in the crater means that much more pressure will be required for the next eruption, hence the level of destruction will likely be higher. If you want to learn more about St. Helens, if you're visiting, the Johnston Ridge Observatory is located in the the heart of the blast zone with stunning up-close views of the mountain and its crater. It has interpretive displays that tell biological, geological, and human history of the area in Mount St. Helens. And it serves as a starting point for a lot of the fun hikes that are in the area, and that's where I started my hike on Harry's Ridge. And it's actually named after the 30-year-old

volcanologist David Johnston, who manned that second observation point that the geologic survey thought was safer than that original one they abandoned when things started getting really rough. His last words were recorded via radio transmission as the eruption was happening, exclaiming Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it, before his radio signal went dark. His remains were never found. And because, like I mentioned, because Truman was so public in the end, there's fortunately a lot of news footage of him speaking to the press in those final weeks of his life. there are so many interviews to read online as well. If you felt really connected to his story like I did and want to learn more about him, there are several books about him in particular,

and I'll add them to our book recommendation list on our website. But the book I primarily used as a source was called Truman of St. Helens, The Man in His Mountain, which was actually written by his niece, Shirley Rosen. So everything in that book is pretty much firsthand, from her, her family experience with him, and his friends and family as well. But there are lots of other books that discuss the eruption and other stories of several others that died in the event as well. There are also lots of documentaries and miniseries on the eruption. But if you want a little change and want to hear about people who actually, you know, lived through this eruption, there is a movie called Surviving Mount St. Helen's Disaster.

It's on Amazon and it came out last year. So it's super recent. And then there's a Forest Service video that if you type in on Google Mount St. Helens, it'll probably be one of the first thing that pops up. And it's kind of cheesy. Like it was made in like the 80s, late 80s old vintage footage is used and it's really cool. If you want to see some footage directly after the eruption and just hear from the Forest Service about what's going on with the recovery of the area and all of that.

So Truman's story really stuck with me and I really have no idea why because I'm not personally connected to this area. I didn't live on Spirit Lake. I only visited the area a handful of times. But when the Spirit Lake Lodge was in its heyday, we don't have that anymore. You know, we live in a different time that not everyone's as personally connected to each other and we don't have a lot of secluded time out in the wilderness. I can imagine the parties that they had and his personality just really left a mark on me. And I really think that even though some people thought that he was a little bit of, I don't know the word, he was a little controversial, especially because he was totally saying F you to authorities and doing whatever he wanted. I think that his story was really special.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing it. I mean, he was certainly a very eccentric person between his life and his lifestyle and what he kind of stood for is very different. And his story is really unique. You brought up the Titanic earlier and it kind of reminds me of that. Like the captain goes down with his ship and that was him and his lodge. You know, he went down with the lodge. Exactly.

So he is still there, you know, with all the things that he held dearest. So if you are in Mount St. Helens, I definitely recommend hiking the Harry's Ridge Trail. It's beautiful. You can overlook that lake. And if you're ever there, send pictures because I'll never get sick of seeing pictures of Mount St. Helens. And that's about it. If you want to keep up with us, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark. You can find us on Twitter. I know we mentioned that last week. We're trying. We're trying. We're working on our social media. I've been tweeting. I honestly haven't used Twitter in a few years from my own personal one, but we're back. We're on Twitter. We're tweeting. We're posting things. We're sending the tweet. We're doing the tweeter. You can find us there struggling at NPAD podcast. And you can always send us an email with a trail of your own. If you have a special experience, definitely send us an email at NPAD podcast at gmail.com. And of course, I'll update the book recommendation list after this episode. And lastly, oh, lastly, but not leastly.

Last but not least, please, please follow us on whatever listening platform you utilize, whether it's Apple or Spotify or Google or Amazon or Pandora, follow us, review, rate, subscribe. It means a lot to us. I've never, I will say. It sounds so weird to like ask that now in this position because I've been a podcast listener for years. And I have never, I have podcasts that are on a schedule. I know which ones come out which day. I follow religiously.

I love them. I have never until now followed, reviewed or rated any of them because I never knew how important it was as a listener. You don't subscribe? No, I've never done that. I just know to go to them. Yeah. Oh, I always click subscribe because, and I'm like, I mean, I haven't been listening to podcasts for years.

I'm a little newer than you, but I always click subscribe because then I get a notification and it comes up in my news feed when they post a new episode. Okay, but it was all up here, baby. I knew I had a schedule going. That's dedication. That's a lot of thought and love put into those episodes because for me, I just get a notification and it's like, so-and-so, new episode posted today. And then if I open my app, it'll have all the episodes I haven't listened to yet and

listen now. That's a great idea. Do what Cassie does. Subscribe, write and review. It does truly mean a lot on coming from the other end. We put a lot of love into this podcast and we just want to hear back from you. That's all. Is that it? Yeah, I think that's everything we have for this week. Cool. Well, in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Good. Bye. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount.

Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2020. Potential savings will vary.