Happy Kaboomiversary!

As the Seattle Traveler reminds us, today's the 27th anniversary of Mount St. Helens' eruption back in 1980. We remember the eruption, though not the particular day -- we were living in Wisconsin at the time, so we didn't have to shovel any ash out of our gutters. But we know we discussed it in science class.

Any Seattleites want to chime in with their memories, or are all the locals sick of talking about it?

The Times and the PI are mum on the occasion -- the only newsworthy anniversaries are those ending in 0 or 5, apparently. But one of Seattlest's friends told us she's going to a Mount St. Helens party tonight. She IMed us this morning:

friend:I'm helping the hostess make a volcano cake.
I think we're going to model it off of Baked Alaska, with cake and ice cream all covered in meringue.
me: Will it actually erupt like a science class project?
friend:no, but there will be "lahar sauce" -- hot fudge with cream (to make it look lighter and ashy-er) and crushed up Oreos in it.
and that'll be in the center of a tube cake, which will be covered with the ice cream & meringue, so it will (fingers crossed) flow when we cut into it.
And if it doesn't work... eh, it's all friends, so it'll make for a good "we tried" story.
...we haven't actually worked out the details yet -- as in, we don't know exactly how we're going to make the sauce, etc. I think we're going to wing it a bit.
Which, of course, is how the best recipes get made, right? ... right??

That's what we've heard. But if any of you have suggestions, share 'em in the comments.

We say she should bake in a little figure to represent Harry Truman. (His body was never found!) Whoever finds Harry in their piece is king or queen of the party and gets to bake the volcano cake for next year.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By James in Food, News on May 18, 2007 10:09 AM

Comments [rss]

AlexisGonzales

Don't remember Seattle getting any part of it. Portland however, was covered in inches of the volcanic ash. That stuff was miserable. You could move it around but couldn't get rid of it!

While still dry, it would blow into every crevice (and orifice)imaginable. People were wearing surgical masks and bandannas over their faces for at least a week after the mountain blew and after a while you didn't even notice. I remember seeing a hand-scrawled sign in the window of the neighborhood bank asking customers to please remove their masks before coming inside.

When it rained, the ash became the messiest sludge you could imagine. I messed up my knee five days after the eruption when I slipped on a pile of wet ash.

MvB

I was living down near Toledo at the time, famous as you know for being the "Gateway to Mt. St. Helens" (there's a mural!). We were close enough I used to stand on our front porch with binoculars to check how the mountain's side was bulging. The first eruption I saw after church and initially thought someone was slashburning. The second one, on May 25, the ash blew our way. I woke up and went outside, thinking it was -- somehow -- snowing, and then discovered it was ash. Being a kid, my first concern was to see if I could ride my bike in it. There wasn't anything you could do about it really, just wait for rain to wash it into the ground. For some reason it made a terrific fertilizer for strawberries. They were huge that year.

Alex

Still waiting for the ash to fall on Seattle. Wind made it head east to Spokane and south to Portland. Talk about a big disappointment as a kid.

COMTE

I was going to CWU in E-burg at the time, and vividly recall waking up early that morning, looking out my dorm window and seeing the leading edge of the ash cloud just starting to pass overhead before falling back asleep. About two hours later, someone began running down the walk ways (it was Barto Hall, which had exterior walks, rather than internal hallways) banging on doors shouting, "the mountain blew up! The mountain blew up!" By the time I got outside, the ash was just beginning to fall from an eerily black, overcase sky, like very fine, powdery snow.

Campus was shut down for three days, and travel was extremely hazardous; cars that sucked the ash into their carburetors were rendered inoperable; the two to six inches of ash on the ground was surprisingly slippery, like trying to walk on a layer of graphite; and of course breathing it in caused severe respiratory irritation. We spent most of those first few days wandering about the campus (which had taken on a definite moonscape-like quality) with damp bandannas or dust masks to try to minimize inhaling too much of the nasty ash.

I managed to get out of town about three weeks later to visit my Mom in Longview, and got hit by the second eruption, which blew NW instead of NE, and by the time I got back to E-burg, was hit by the fallout from the third eruption. So, I may have the rare distinction of being one of the few people to get caught in all three.

And yeah, Harry. He was an old friend of my grandfather's from his years of logging in the area, and we spent at least a couple of weekends every summer of my late childhood up at Spirit Lake Lodge. I don't remember too much about the trips, except that Harry, who was something of a curmudgeon, nevertheless kept a large jar of hard candy by the cash register, that he would occasionally open and hand you a piece. Also, that the water of the lake was crystal clear: you could stand on the boat dock outside the Lodge, look straight down 60 or so feet and clearly identify a 7-up bottle lying on the lakebed.

TheTerminallyFIll

This just made me very very hungry

Seth

I remember seeing the picture in the paper. And of course getting pumice stones from relatives for Xmas every year for the next 10 years.

D Huygens

I was in the fourth grade living in Spokane, where we got a lot of ash. Came home from church that Sun. AM and heard about the eruption. Went outside and saw the entire western sky filled with dark, grey clouds. Stuck inside for several days while they tested the ash (about an inch covered the ground); then they sent us back to school wearing dust masks; no recess, of course. Took a jarful of ash with us back east that summer to show all our amazed relatives at the family reunion.