A Dangerous Glacier Grows Inside Mount St. Helens' Crater | OPB

Thanks I was running out of things to worry about.

Charlie's determination to die on that volcano is astounding.

"You're just a visitor, and hopefully you're welcome." The absolute respect for nature in that statement - perfect. I was 10 and living in WA state when this blew. Several hours away and still heard it. Had ash coating everything - the sky, the ground, everything, for 2 solid weeks.

My wife and I were driving north on I5 to Kent, south of Seattle, when it blew. We couldn't comprehend what we were looking at. It was surrealistic. I had to turn on the radio to figure out what was happening. The blast was in full view. We drove around for weeks with a nylon on the air cleaner to protect the engine. Eastern Washington took the brunt of the ash, but it was a mess on our side too.

"big as a volkswagon". I've heard that expression a thousand times. It should officially be a unit of measure.

I enjoy outdoor thrill seeking activities but ice caving on an active volcano might be my limit.

I remember anticipating the eruption Mt. Helens several weeks before it occurred. And I vividly remember the morning it actually erupted 42 years ago on 5-18-80! My spouse was watching TV in the family room and I was watching TV in the bedroom when it came over the news around 8:40 a.m.! People had been evacuating for a while before the eruption, but it was still amazing though expected, as no one knew exactly when it would happen. I had family in Washington, and visited up there a while after the eruption, when all had quieted down again. I still have the little "lava" dog that I bought in a souvenir shop up there. I remember seeing Mt. Rainier and being in awe about how beautiful it was, an innocent-looking snow-covered mountain, which COULD erupt same as all those other mountains I used to ski on in the Cascade Range! But you wouldn't find me hiking in the crater on Mt. St. Helens, for any amount of money! Our Planet Earth is VERY active and although I know that today, there are sensors on all the mountains in the "Ring of Fire" -- I'm not taking chances of half a mountain coming down on me, like it did that one man who said "Vancouver, Vancouver -- this is it, this is it!" as he was watching the mountain erupt. He lost his life. I'll never forget that! It's bad enough that I live within about 180 miles of Yellowstone, and if that massive crater ever goes, I'm toast! But you can't live in fear, so if it blows, it blows! Scientists say it could erupt tomorrow or 100 years from now, but that it WILL erupt some day. As long as Old Faithful and all the mud puddles keep bubbling, I know the pressure probably won't build up, but I've stopped keeping track of it! It's not worth living in fear, what will be, will be!

As someone who grew up in the plains, the size of even just the volcanic crater is almost unfathomable. I'm trying to imagine how many city blocks this area would cover lol definitely a lot..

1:44 The Volkswagen is an official unit of measure.

“If it went off like it did in 1980, we wouldn’t be alive” and that is why he's the expert volcano dude.

I visited this place and the crater is astoundingly large...much bigger than any photos or videos I've ever seen. I've never been anywhere that made me realize that the power of nature is so large. When it blew, my mom lived to the west of it, in Montana, about 500 miles away. She said that the ash at her place was 4-inches deep.

I've been to Mt. St. Helen's a couple times, in 2001 and 2015. It's fascinating. The surrounding area got greener over the years.

'Independent Geologist' essentially means 'Local Eccentric' and I love it!

This blowing in 2020 would be very fitting for how things have been so far this year.

Thank you to the curious folks who need to know why. They do the hard part and all we have to do is pay attention when they tell us what they found. This was fascinating. I was in Salem, OR when the mountain blew her top. A light coating of ash was on everything outdoors. It was gritty and you had to rinse the cars off--sweeping or brushing it off would scratch terribly. It clung to windows and window screens. Our skies didn't go dark like some places in Washington did. Friends in Yakima said it was like midnight at noon. Seeing the little green shoots coming up, seeing the tracks of wildlife in the deep ash and then spotting the first small herd of elk, rabbit tracks, too--it was so welcome! There was such great speculation that pretty much all wildlife was gone and it would be a long, long time before anything green would be spotted. Mother Nature surprised us and it was such a relief. There were tears of joy in those first signs of life. I still have a tiny vial of ash from the event. Ugly stuff, really. Cinder-y. Medium-dark grey. I hope it stays calm. I've moved closer to it.

" They build their home on a volcano and then wonder why there is lava in the livingroom" - George Carlin

"Today we'll be visiting a volcano." "Okay" "An active volcano" "Okay" "That blew up in 1980" "Okay" "We'll stand on a growing glacier" "Okay" "Then we'll go under the glacier...into caves" "Are you sure?" "Yes, the earthquakes don't happen all the time.." "Earthquakes? While we're under a glacier....on a active volcano? "It's fine....the gas will suffocate you first."

"And uh, a hardhat wouldn't do yah any good." I love scientists.

I was living in Victoria BC when Mt Saint Helen's blew in the '80's. The townhouse we were living in were built in adjoined rows of 6 each. I heard a series of loud, deep, booms, and thought someone at the other end of our row, was slamming their front door several times. The next day I took the ash out of our BBQ and sprinkled it over our teeny tiny backyard, then I called my mum down and she was amazed! There was a lot of news about the eruption, and one of the reports was of ash coming back down. That's a fun memory for me.

Lived in Vancouver WA in the early '60's. As kids we would ride our bikes up to Mill Plain Ave and then being over the ridge we could see Mt. St. Helens. It was a perfectly symmetrical rounded snowcapped mountain at the time.