The mountain is in the news. It is erupting again. All of the hub-bub makes Ruby nostalgic. She remembers the eruption 24 years ago, and the events prior to that. "We were so ignorant", she thought as she shook her head.
Prior to erupting the old mountain was a member of her family. It was not unusual on a weekend afternoon when Berilac was free from work that her family loaded up their vehicle and would drive there. They would travel up to timberline, gaze at the spectacle of the mountain and absorb its majesty for a while, and then travel home.
The mountain, before May 18, 1980
Ruby was just learning to cross-country ski there in March of 1980, when the small earthquakes started. In the months that followed mountain watching was a local pass-time. First people heard there was a bulge forming,... and then one day there was small steam burp off the top. The governor of the state declared a "red-zone" radius around the mountain where no one was supposed to enter... and many stupidly ignored it. Everyone had visions of lava running down the mountain. They did not have a clue of what was about to occur.
One Sunday in May it happened. An unimaginably immense explosion that ripped out the entire north face of the mountain, buried the lake below, and flattened thousands of acres of timber in a nanosecond. Then a mud slide came down the river next to the mountain... burying homes and tearing out bridges in its wake. To the east a cloud of volcanic ash traveled that was so dense it turned daytime into night.
The Eruption
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The event left Ruby in the kind of shock felt when there is a traumatic death to someone close. It was a painful, scary and sad. Yet it was also fascinating to see the power of nature exhibited in this way.
Lately, The Mountain has returned to its former Sunday-drive destination. A place to go and absorb a display of power and majesty. "I wonder what will happen next." Ruby thought.
Mungo, Baby Rube, Bramblerose, Mareyann and Olo in front of the post-eruption mountain
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