What I found on Mt. St. Helens 37 years after the eruption

that was like a blast a bomb I can't even take a look like because all I saw was the ash cloud coming at us the only thing standing above it was any tree standing there was now Tom so check this place out I'm standing here in Washington State looking up at Mount st. Helens a still active volcano that erupted in May of 1980 blasting rocks trees and lava miles and miles at the force of an atomic bomb so after all this time evidence of incredible destruction still exists here from destroyed vehicles in the mountains to half-buried houses left behind I'm gonna show you what Mount st. Helens looks like now 37 years later check this out the wind being sucked up towards the mountain towards the blast by this time you can hear the mountain rumbling constant rumbling grinding growling sound look at that thousands and thousands of trees ripped from their roots like toothpicks during that enormous eruption you can see the north side of the volcano when normally volcanoes erupt upwards mount st. Helens erupted outwards off to the side and it was like a blast rip those trees from their roots through the air coming to land in Spirit Lake everything was decimated here this was no-man's land in fact the blast was so powerful that it totally changed the way the lake looked and everything it reshaped the land I'm walking toward the only lot I can see on top of a ridge and you're the mountain behind me rumbling the enormous mud and water striking down washed out the road so this is what is known as the a-frame house the sunken a-frame house this is basically what happened was this house was in the process of being completed when the eruption happened and a flow of mud came down through the mountains and at a rate of 70 miles an hour flowing through and this this mud came five hours after the eruption that's that's the distance that I had to come all the way through the mountains to get here which is incredible you can see the stove down there the refrigerator if you notice that was all completely covered in mud you could see the mud on the refrigerator probably came up maybe three feet look at the cabinetry so you could see the doorway look at that mud line on the doorway gives you an idea of how high the little mud came up to looks like somebody smashed the door open unfortunately so this was a man's house when the eruption happened Oh beautiful a frame crazy look at all this covered in mud and they're gonna attempt to go down these stairs very old beautiful all right see what else is around here who's most likely a logging truck good look at the damage so this is one of the trucks that are left behind right on the side of the road next to a restaurant you can see the damage from when one of the massive trees up on the mountain flew through the air landing and crushing crushing this truck obviously it's been here for so long that now there's new life new growth coming out of this the size of that tree growing through the back of this truck is a testament to how long this has been here that is a full-sized tree well kind of full size 30 feet or so it's been there a while and the destruction is incredible though look at that jeez the ashfall came in just minutes no light at all you couldn't if you turned on your flashlight you had maybe about five inches of light it just sucked it out because the dust was still thick in the air way up on the mountainside starting to come across some some machinery and some oh wow check this out Wow yeah that's a full-sized bulldozer that is amazing buried in the earth here that's the engine with the turbo on top that is incredible oh my gosh this thing is so huge this is where the driver sat I guess these were fuel tanks that's that above and behind the driver I have no idea why this is here how it got here I know if it was left here or if it's thrown here and it landed upright who knows these cables are spewing all over we're all over the place they're all over the mountainside look at this on/off they're totally stuck the safety chain for something all the gauges who knows what those gauges were for a fuel pressure that is amazing so my guess is this thing has been through a battle or was through a battle and 37 years ago I'm not even on the trail anymore this is way off the trail I was looking I was looking over over a mountain ridge and you could see there was a piece of some sort of machinery or equipment down here there's no trail that leads to it that I can find but whatever so I'm trekking through the Washington mountain range hair up in st. Helens seeing if I can get to this it's totally overgrown but I made it through the clearing here's the truck Wow look at that fully intact let's see if the radiator still has fluid in it no it's bone-dry it's going to overheat no license plate I mean this is really in the middle of nowhere just on the side of the mountain no trail leads to this at all and look how new these tires are to Uniroyal look at that look at the the hoses on the roof they look brand-new I get to get up on the roof there you go look at this this tire looks like it was never even used and look at these hoses sitting here for 37 years in the exact same spot there's a hatch right here see we can open up this hatch nope probably not many people have seen this because I hide down an entire Ridge all the way I hooked all the way down that you can't even see how far I had because of the fog let's get this tree growing out of it new life all right going back up on the ridge all right this is it's hard to see it because the lens is so fogged up because it's raining so much but this is a completely flipped over truck I can't get down there it's so hard to get down there it's just dense dense woods and it's raining so I'm not gonna climb down there but this is incredible an entire truck like a huge truck like the ones I've been finding flipped over completely on its back which confirms that yes it was the blast that put these things here alright it's starting to rain has it sometimes does in Washington so I'm gonna hike back down and see what else I can find in the morning Heineken out was in a kind of experience cuz we watched a club we came across her to health that were just standing there in days and one side of him would be completely burn away and the other side would just be perfect just like they were nothing happened to her so this lava tube is not from the Mount st. Helens eruption but I thought I had to show you this because this is incredible so we're going down inside gonna do some lava tube lob lava tube exploring it's a picture this whole cave for this whole lava tube filled with flowing river of lava that is awesome look at this rock look how cool this is like little half circles check this out there's different layers here of lava and it's cracked so you can see down in there that is bizarre it's like delaminating coming off with a side of a tunnel alright so I'm about a mile down inside this lava tube and check this out this is incredible these areas where you can see right into the side into the walls of the lava look how beautiful that is yellow and red it goes back inside this makeshift cave grow all the way in here I'm inside of a lava cave unfiled town in the ground it's not something you do every day all right I gotta crawl out of here Oh all right look at this lava rock here wedged in between these two shelves that come out that is awesome so if you were ever wondering how a lava tube ends it kind of just ends it gets smaller and smaller until you can't go any further and look at this rock it's like a shiny gray or shiny silver it's pretty smooth I guess that is amazing so that's the end is just kind of smaller smaller just gets so smaller you can't even you have to crawl and then it eventually ends so there's love I'm actually walking on lava so it just the flow just kind of stopped and then this lava cooled and that was the end of it it's narrow so this is a massive massive landslide a cave-in from the roof of this lava tube so I'm trying to climb over this thing trying to continue on through this cave through this tube here trying to make it over this over to the other side well look at the ceiling this white diamond like rock glows with a light look at that it's got to be 50 feet tall maybe 40 feet tall all right I found the way out check it out you gotta climb this ladder to get out I'm getting out right now you can feel how warm it is outside I'm wearing sweatshirt and jeans been in a cave for hours the temperature changes steaming up the camera so I hope you can see this I'm climbing up the ladder getting out of here alright I made it out so basically it's just the opening the earth opens up and goes down into the tunnels into the lava tubes can you tell if there's been any change on the top of the mountain yes a good deal at the top of the mountain is gone what part of it you do not like let's put it this way I think the crater is probably at least tripled in size alright so it's early in the morning and I started my climb climbing up to the top I need to see what it looks like on the top of Mount st. Helens which means you're gonna see what the top looks like I'm at st. Helens but right now I'm in this huge boulder field that I'm climbing and it's filled with these giant jagged pieces of rock that were blasted thousands of feet into the sky during the eruption and rained down on this area so now you get to see what the mountainside looks like climbing up Mount st. Helens I'm getting there this is just the entire mountainside was one gigantic mudslide so this landslide came down here destroying everything in its path filled up these valleys some hundreds of feet deep with mud and tree limbs and whole trees completely changing the landscape all right coming up to the snow here high up in the mountain first time I was actually I guess it's ice by color snow I see snow good snow boss now now it should be told not anybody can just hike this you need special permits that are obtained ahead of time so I planned ahead when I knew I was coming to Washington and I applied for a hiking permit so I got lucky I got one and Here I am in physical pain but isn't gonna be awesome all right so I've traded the giant boulders for this slick ashy stone gravel that has no stepping capabilities it's like ice sometimes I step on it you slide down I think it's gonna be this for another I don't know how long this mountain is owning me right now look at this gravel you have to hike in this constantly sliding as you grip I'm almost at the top though but I'm shot man I feel like I've ever been run over by a freight train but I'm gonna get up there so I'll see you in a second well really it's an hour for me all right everybody pretty much at the top I think just over this Ridge is what we've all been waiting for so I'm gonna look at it at the same time you look at it oh wow this is pretty epic oh my gosh yeah well that's what it looks like Wow holy crap so this is firsthand well maybe second hand for you but first hand for me what the crater of Mount st. Helens looks like look at a plane going over whoa stop stay down whew I hope you can see that barrel roll that was awesome now he's doing a dive Howl's good timing on my part Wow you know we've all seen the pictures and we've all seen the footage but seeing this in real life you have no idea how huge this is so it seems like it's not that big like it's not that far away but in reality we are very far from the center it is this crater is huge it is massively huge and that Lake is six miles away it's hard to it's it's hard to compute but look at this that is absolutely insane and you can hike along this Ridge it's crazy all around all along the ridge you can hike and that's I don't know how far down that is it's got to be maybe a thousand feet down or something like that maybe more I really don't know so to give you an idea what it looks like the way I hiked up you can see all the snow down there and it's just this barren wasteland it just it's very very difficult to climb up but that's the only way that's the only way to climb up here so you have to do it so all in the middle this whole bulge here came about in 2003 2004 it started building up building up and now it's it's here and it's there steam coming out of it from all over the place I don't know if you can see that but what's more interesting than that is every once in a while there's like this creaking and moaning that comes from I don't I'm assuming underneath the ice I don't know what it is my guess is that the volcano is it's alive if it's an active volcano so it's constantly shifting and moving and it's actually pretty intimidating to hear it really amazing so this may give you a better idea of how big this crater is look how small I am compared to this incredible so like I was saying Spirit Lake is down there and that's where we were in the beginning of this video during the eruption the entire lake was changed it was reformed it what it looks like now was not what it looked like the day before the eruption and world-famous Harry Truman Harry R Truman owned a Lodge Spirit Lake Lodge and when everybody was being evacuated he refused and he said I spend my life here and I'll die here if that's what has to be and they never found his body sad story but an interesting one so I really hoped you guys loved this video this was pretty incredible making it driving all around this area and finding these places getting down into the forest and finding those trucks and the lava tubes and it's it's amazing around here and beautiful it's really interesting to see how nature is slowly reclaiming this area and we'll see what it looks like in another or 37 years maybe this will erupt again who knows so make sure you follow me along on my journey and actually follow me along on Instagram because I'm going to post some interesting pictures from this trip but I'm traveling all over the country checking out amazing places like here and I'll see you in my next adventure now I get a hike back down you [Music]

Channel: Mobile Instinct

Views: 2,113,930

Rating: 4.8664656 out of 5

Keywords: mount st helens now, what does mount saint helens look like, famous volcano eruptions, mount st helens destruction, how many died on mt st helens, mobile instinct, ape cave lava tubes, atlas obscura a

Id: sm-EvazNCjU

Length: 24min 28sec (1468 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2017