Posted on 04/05/2005 6:36:32 AM PDT by bedolido
Who are these hippies "studying" Mt St. Helens? We can send probes with cameras and sensors to far away planets, or chase terrorists with UAVs, and these dopes can't even keep some simple instruments reporting back data on something in our backyard?
Lighten up. They've had plenty of machinery up in that crater... It got blown up in the last eruption. They fly up and plant the new devices from a helicopter, and it's been cloudy out. Would you like them to fire it from a rocket?
And Strategerist will be here in 3...2...1...
Just funnin' you, Srat. I appreciate your input in these matters.
For $1 million, I'll design and build a prototype UAV that'll drop the sensor right where you want them, and yes, I would also consider using a Super-Sized Estes rocket to deliver the non-postion sensitive ones as well.
Well, get at it. ;~D
A few weeks ago, I was at La Center, near Cougar about 25 miles away, ate lunch and watched it for about an hour.
Saw some minor steam burps, but it was quite breezy that day and they dispersed real quick.
I think the fat lady is getting ready to come on the stage...
Thanks! I'm just waiting on the HairOfTheDog grant check so that we can put the job on the project board. {;^)
It's not necessarily going to "blow" as most people understand it. MSH has erupted 18 times in the last 200 years, and it only totally blew its top in one of those eruptions, in 1980.
Most of its eruptions don't result in a cataclysmic blast; otherwise, it would be a big hole in the ground (which some volcanoes are) instead of a mountain.
To a large extent, I think she sang the big song already. I just don't see that there is enough mass left in the mountain for an eruption of great magnitude... Certainly not the same level of mud flows.
COOL pics!
Thanks.... it was a pretty lucky moment to be flying over!
For sure she sang in 1980. And that event removed hundreds of millions of pounds of material that was blocking the vents.
But I tend to think these 3.0+ events at 1-2 km depth show she is still clearing her throat.
There was some experimentation with a UAV to measure gases last fall, don't know what came of it; I suspect it didn't work.
In regard to the issues you raise regarding the "dopes" of the USGS:
1) The USGS has very little money; nothing compared to what even a fraction of the military or NASA has.
2) UAVs are tricky beasts and frankly, if you try to fly one inside the crater in zero visibility and high winds, you'll lose every single one of them.
3) It's not worth the risk to have any humans on the ground inside the crater; everything is slung in by helicopter. You don't want to be hovering inside an active volcano dropping stuff in zero visbility and high winds.
All of the inside the crater sensors are nice-to-have items but none of the data they provide is so critical to human safety otherwise that it's worth getting anyone killed putting sensors there.
I'm only about 50 miles from the mountain, and I've been there many times over the years, from soon after the blast, until last summer. I think it's been neat to see not only the recovery of the replanted forest, but also to observe even last summer how much evidence is still left. Approaching the mountain, much of the forest is 20 years old now, but much of the upper river, and certainly the area between Johnston Ridge and the mountain is still very much moonscape. Even after all these years, there is plenty to see and it's still remarkable, isn't it?
Get out the Pepto!
I'd like to get closer, I've been to the museum above Castle Rock a few times but that was years ago.
USFS was grumbling about reopening Johnson Ridge around May 1st for the 25th anniversary. Who knows?
Back in November or so, some fool dude got through all the barriers and went to the crater rim with a vidcam! Sound on as well!
Spectacular footage. Huge boulders bigger than cars just randomly rolling down. You could hear the sounds of the quakes and see the frames shake as they hit.
They showed about 5 minutes or so on King 5.
The dude was either:
Really, really brave,
really, really stupid,
already been castrated,
all of the above!
Oh - if you haven't been up to Johnston Ridge you really must go. I recommend driving all the way to the top at Johnston Ridge without stopping, and then work your way back down. The stops along the way are really all interesting, but it's easy to spend so much time on the intermediate stops that you end up late to the top.
Also make sure you check out the Weyerhauser logging exhibit that is on their property down at the bottom. That's the only stop I'd recommend on the way up, it will give you the eyes to see everything they lost and what has gone into the replanting.
I saw the footage from that guy, it's pretty cool to have lucky fools once in awhile! In the summer, they had guided hikes up to the crater last year, not sure if it will be too active this year to do that.
Johnston Ridge has snow at least till May.
An ex of mine (from years ago) who lives in Hood River summitted Helens in spring 2002, then skied down.
She said it was totally awesome, the pictures and vid you see don't come anywheres near close to showing it. And the mt. was pretty dormant then.
She was home and got a little freaked when there was a 4.0+ on Hood.
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