On May 17, 1980 Mt. St. Helens erupted, surprising everyone with the magnitude of its destruction -- especially the geologists who had been monitoring its troubled sleep for almost a year. Over 23 years later, I finally made it up to the north side of the mountain to take some pictures. Here, you can plainly see the lava flow from the north side of the crater (wide angle zoom -- about 28mm in SLR terms).
I was really impressed with the magnitude of the volcano and crater. The pictures that I had seen -- and these -- don't really do justice. For some sense of scale, know that I was standing about 5.5 miles away on Johnston Ridge for these photos.
Mount Saint Helens crater and lava dome from Johnston Ridge (5x optical zoom -- or about 200mm telephoto lens).
