Mt. St. Helens--Before Round Magnet

"Like a big dish of ice cream," that's how we described Mt. St. Helens before it exploded in 1980. This picture was taken from the Girl Scout camp on the north side of Spirit Lake, sometime in the late 1960s. In the foreground is the beautiful blue lake, with a swimming dock and brave (the lake was icy cold!) swimmers. The snow-capped mountain rises into the blue sky of the background, with a few wispy clouds for company. Surrounding the lake and the base of the mountain are green, tree-covered hills. All of this is gone now, and we had no thought for the devastation to come. We did have some warnings, however. Indian legend told of a giant spirit fish that lived in the lake, and sometimes overturned the canoes of unwary travelers. One night we were enjoying the full moon out on the floating dock, admiring the glassy stillness of the lake, when suddenly our dock began to rock wildly beneath us. "It's the Big Fish!" we told each other, little dreaming of earthquakes and eruptions only a few years later. The photo is copyright Gail Storrs, 1968(?).