Book: In The Path Of Destruction (non-fiction St. Helens)
Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:35 pmAs I posted previously, I finally made my personal pilgrimage to Mt. St. Helens this past August.
It was a fabulous trip. I camped at Toutle, and visited the Johnston Ridge Visitor's Center (the Mt. St. Helens observatory) on two successive days.
Here is a review posted on Amazon that pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book. I agree with this assessment 100%. Am re-posting it here because this review already covers all of the points:
https://www.amazon.com/Path-Destruction-Eyewitness-Chronicles-Helens/product-reviews/0874223237/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_ttl?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&sortBy=recent#R1YJAY0K1RBZSR
If you read only one book about the eruption of this mighty volcano, **THIS IS THE ONE**. It is exhaustively researched, well written, and totally engrossing. With the first reading, I literally could not put it down. It is extremely dense with verified information, so much so that it is difficult to take all of it in at a first reading, yet it often reads like a speeding adventure/disaster novel - yet it is all true.
After about a month, I sat down for a second reading, and found it just as engrossing as the first time - perhaps even more so. Still such a tremendous amount of factual information, hard to absorb.
I was in my early thirties when the mountain erupted (about the age of David Johnston at the time) and it took me all of these years to finally make the trek to the mountain.
Although I was not sure what I would find there, it was not at all what I expected. The destroyed mountain is so immense that one has difficulty grasping the size of it while standing at the observatory. As of August of 2017, the mountain is still jagged and filled with rubble, still quite vigorously steaming, dead trees (flattened by the eruption) still visible on the surrounding mountains 37 years after the eruption.
I found it curious that the Johnston Ridge Observatory does not mention the full name of the volcanologist it is named for anywhere (that I could find - and I looked) on either the inside or the outside of the building. Why is that, I wondered? Where is the name of David A. Johnston mentioned?
Mostly no where here, it seems.
I asked around, a ranger at Coldwater Lake, a Forest Service employee inside the observatory building - no one could give me a straight answer, other than obliquely stating that there had been some kind of "controversy" regarding his death. When I asked what it was, the nearest I could come to an answer was that Dr. Johnston was the "young guy on the block" (although already a Ph.d) and his predictions regarding an enormous eruption were not thought likely (his predictiions turned out to be frightening accurate) - where the "old guard" thought the volcano would "steam and then go back to sleep" as it had done in the mid-1800's.
It seems to me that there may be another story here, as yet untold.
Finally, someone pointed out to me a small 8 1/2 x 11 photo of Dr. Johnston, under glass, affixed to a far wall, with a brief - very brief - description of his contributions, and of his loss. Mounted on the wall at a place that I would have never found it, had not someone been kind enough to point it out. I briefly touched the glass over the photo with my fingertips, and whispered my respects.
And the Mountain itself? Again, not what I expected. I was looking for, I guess, a historical site, calm, serene, beautiful, the landscape healing. Although the landscape around the mountain *is* healing, it will likely be a century or more - perhaps much more - before it is green and forested as it once was.
Calm and serene it was most certainly *not*. I found this still-steaming, still-active volcano to be intimidating, malevolent, and threatening (astonishing that a multi-million dollar observatory would be built on this same ridge where Dr. Johnston perished, in what is almost undeniably in the path of future destructive eruptions).
Although the mountain was "beautiful", at least in the way a destroyed mountain can be considered "beautiful" I could not wait to be gone.
Once at home, I read this book. Then read it a second time. I see a third reading coming sometime in the future. Having been there, I could now more easily visualize the ruggedness of the terrain, the enormous size of the volcano, how the eruption happened, and how massive and destructive it truly was.
Dr. Johnston is mentioned many times in this book - one can draw one's own conclusions therefrom. I must say that all who are mentioned here (geologists, journalists, survivors, victims, all) are mentioned equitably, fairly, truthfully, and with good balance.
If you have any interest in volcanoes in general, and in Mt. St. Helens specifically, you MUST read this book.
It is well worth your time.
I, too, am on my second reading. The whole scenerio is pretty mind-boggling.
Anne
It was a fabulous trip. I camped at Toutle, and visited the Johnston Ridge Visitor's Center (the Mt. St. Helens observatory) on two successive days.
Here is a review posted on Amazon that pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book. I agree with this assessment 100%. Am re-posting it here because this review already covers all of the points:
https://www.amazon.com/Path-Destruction-Eyewitness-Chronicles-Helens/product-reviews/0874223237/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_ttl?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&sortBy=recent#R1YJAY0K1RBZSR
If you read only one book about the eruption of this mighty volcano, **THIS IS THE ONE**. It is exhaustively researched, well written, and totally engrossing. With the first reading, I literally could not put it down. It is extremely dense with verified information, so much so that it is difficult to take all of it in at a first reading, yet it often reads like a speeding adventure/disaster novel - yet it is all true.
After about a month, I sat down for a second reading, and found it just as engrossing as the first time - perhaps even more so. Still such a tremendous amount of factual information, hard to absorb.
I was in my early thirties when the mountain erupted (about the age of David Johnston at the time) and it took me all of these years to finally make the trek to the mountain.
Although I was not sure what I would find there, it was not at all what I expected. The destroyed mountain is so immense that one has difficulty grasping the size of it while standing at the observatory. As of August of 2017, the mountain is still jagged and filled with rubble, still quite vigorously steaming, dead trees (flattened by the eruption) still visible on the surrounding mountains 37 years after the eruption.
I found it curious that the Johnston Ridge Observatory does not mention the full name of the volcanologist it is named for anywhere (that I could find - and I looked) on either the inside or the outside of the building. Why is that, I wondered? Where is the name of David A. Johnston mentioned?
Mostly no where here, it seems.
I asked around, a ranger at Coldwater Lake, a Forest Service employee inside the observatory building - no one could give me a straight answer, other than obliquely stating that there had been some kind of "controversy" regarding his death. When I asked what it was, the nearest I could come to an answer was that Dr. Johnston was the "young guy on the block" (although already a Ph.d) and his predictions regarding an enormous eruption were not thought likely (his predictiions turned out to be frightening accurate) - where the "old guard" thought the volcano would "steam and then go back to sleep" as it had done in the mid-1800's.
It seems to me that there may be another story here, as yet untold.
Finally, someone pointed out to me a small 8 1/2 x 11 photo of Dr. Johnston, under glass, affixed to a far wall, with a brief - very brief - description of his contributions, and of his loss. Mounted on the wall at a place that I would have never found it, had not someone been kind enough to point it out. I briefly touched the glass over the photo with my fingertips, and whispered my respects.
And the Mountain itself? Again, not what I expected. I was looking for, I guess, a historical site, calm, serene, beautiful, the landscape healing. Although the landscape around the mountain *is* healing, it will likely be a century or more - perhaps much more - before it is green and forested as it once was.
Calm and serene it was most certainly *not*. I found this still-steaming, still-active volcano to be intimidating, malevolent, and threatening (astonishing that a multi-million dollar observatory would be built on this same ridge where Dr. Johnston perished, in what is almost undeniably in the path of future destructive eruptions).
Although the mountain was "beautiful", at least in the way a destroyed mountain can be considered "beautiful" I could not wait to be gone.
Once at home, I read this book. Then read it a second time. I see a third reading coming sometime in the future. Having been there, I could now more easily visualize the ruggedness of the terrain, the enormous size of the volcano, how the eruption happened, and how massive and destructive it truly was.
Dr. Johnston is mentioned many times in this book - one can draw one's own conclusions therefrom. I must say that all who are mentioned here (geologists, journalists, survivors, victims, all) are mentioned equitably, fairly, truthfully, and with good balance.
If you have any interest in volcanoes in general, and in Mt. St. Helens specifically, you MUST read this book.
It is well worth your time.
I, too, am on my second reading. The whole scenerio is pretty mind-boggling.
Anne
