Humble Observatory Frames The Awesome Power Of Nature

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. - They saved the best for last.

The final seven and one-half miles of the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway here winds through a sprawling debris field intersected by South Coldwater Creek, then winds precariously around a ridge, finally landing you undramatically in a broad parking lot next to the final hump of hill.

But when you walk through a gap in the ridge, the view will bowl you over - Mount St. Helens, still raw and primal looking, yawns dangerously just five miles away.

"Bingo, you are walking around, and there it is," says Norman Banks of Vancouver, Canada, a volcanologist who still can be impressed by nature.

The Johnston Ridge Observatory, the last of five interpretive centers to be constructed on the highway, opened in May - the 17th anniversary of the cataclysmic May 18, 1980, eruption - and it seems to know its place amid the powerful forces of nature.

The one-story observatory sits off to the right, a gray, humble-looking concrete bunker wedged unobtrusively into the hillside.

"This is fantastic to me, to come up here and get a totally different viewpoint," says Jeff Davis, president of Portland-based Eco Tours of Oregon, which brings hikers to the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

The view dominates everything here, from the broad circular plaza to the windows spanning the building and even the theater re-creating the eruption. The observatory sits at the 4,400-foot

elevation, just below the crater floor across the valley at 6,500 feet.

This is the only head-on view available to the public of the volcano's shattered north side, with its bulging volcanic dome, and the broad debris plain. Log-choked Spirit Lake is off to the far left, the pumice plain is to the front and the debris avalanche stretches through the valley to the west.

Coldwater Ridge Interpretive Center also has good views of the volcano and the surrounding devastation but not this good.

"The difference here is this is obviously the close premier view, and we wanted to tell the story of the eruption," said Peter Frenzen, a monument scientist with the U.S. Forest Service.

The site is just one-fourth mile east of where volcanologist David Johnston was thought to be when he blurted excitedly into his radio, "Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!"

A climbing rope and some blasted bits of metal from Johnston's trailer were the only physical evidence left behind.

The moments of the explosion are re-created in the observatory's 16-minute film, "Message from the Mountain," which uses computer animation to convey the power of the eruption.

As the film ends, the screen and a red curtain rise on a wide window, framing a close-up view of the slumbering but not trustworthy volcano.

The mountain has had volcanic activity for 40,000 years and had been inactive for 123 years when it erupted in 1980, devastating 150,000 acres of forest and killing 57 people.

The nature and scope of the eruption is the focus of the $10.5 million observatory, which uses technology, personal stories and the surrounding site to tell its story in 16,000 square feet of space.

Standing in the central lobby is a waist-level model of the area, which uses 65,000 multicolored, optical fiber lights - 130 miles of wiring - to delineate the sequence of eruptive events.

Some real items - a blasted, old-growth tree trunk and a clump of lava - are here, as well as an engrossing series of panels telling the stories of more than a dozen survivors.

Other exhibits include readings from seismometers on the volcano, a video trip into the crater with geologists and murals of the mountain and forest.

In spite of its assets, the new center knowingly is designed as a humble accent to the mountain.

"It's not standing out as an architectural monument," Banks says.

Perhaps as much as anyone, he recognizes the power of this place, the hillside stripped bare of life, and blasted trees and chunks of volcanic rock strewn about.

Banks was here four days before the blast, monitoring St. Helens' swelling activity, and flew over the site hours after the eruption.

"We're standing just about where the blast overtook the debris avalanche," he said, standing on the observatory plaza.

Banks, given the rotation of scientists, could have gotten an uncomfortably close view of the eruption.

"I'd have to say I was frightened at the time, truly frightened," he says. "It was a dangerous place."

--------- If you go ---------

Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lane, five miles east of Castle Rock. Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through Sept. 30, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 1 to April 27. Call: 360-274-2100. Exhibits offer an introduction to the events of the eruption, and there is a nature trail. Three-day pass required.

Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitor Center, 27 miles east of Castle Rock. Open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday.Call: 800-752-8439. A large, open wood lodge with exhibits, a gift shop and restaurant. Helicopter tours will resume in mid May of 1998. Free admission.

Forest Learning Center, 33 miles east of Castle Rock. It will reopen in spring, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Call: 360-414-3439. Exhibits a one-half-mile biodiversity trail. Free.

Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center, 43 miles east of Castle Rock. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily through late Sept. 30, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 1 to April 27. Call: 360-274-2131. Panoramic views of the mountain and Toutle River Valley, exhibits, one-fourth-mile Winds of Change Interpretive Trail and live interpretive programs. Three-day pass required.

Coldwater Lake Recreation Area, two miles east of Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center. Picnic tables, rest rooms, boat launch and one-fourth-mile Birth of a Lake Interpretive Trail. Three-day pass required.

Hummocks Trail and Trailhead, 46 miles east of Castle Rock. Two miles. Free.

Loowit Viewpoint, 50 miles east of Castle Rock. Views of the eroded canyon and debris-filled valley in front of the volcano. Three-day pass required.

Johnston Ridge Observatory, 5 miles east of Castle Rock (51 miles east of Interstate 5 at exit 49 on the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway). Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Call: 360-274-2140. Views of Mount St. Helens crater and Spirit Lake, interpretive displays, a 16-minute film on the eruption and displays on the art and science of monitoring a volcano and predicting eruptions.

Three-day admission to all Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument sites, including Johnston Ridge Observatory, is $8 for those 16 and over, $4 for ages 62 and over and free for those under 15. Annual passes (good January through December) are $24 for ages 16 and older, $12 for ages 62 and over. To climb Mount St. Helens above 4,800 feet, the fee is $15. Passes are available at visitor centers. A one-half-mile Eruption Trail is under construction next to the center, and is scheduled to open next spring or summer.