Drove to see Mt. St. Helens today...
This is the "Sediment Retention System", aka a really big earthen dam on the North Fork of the Toutle River. It was built in 1989 to put an end to ash and debris choking up the river as it washed down from the landslide area to the immediate north of the mountain. It was designed to remain useable up to 2035... but it's looking like it will fall rather short of that goal.
Fun fact: For the first five years after the eruption, the Toutle River carried more sediment (total mass, not concentration) than the Mississippi and Amazon Rivers... combined.
The view from Elk Rock Vista point on the way in. This was my first view of the massive blowdown zone to the north from ground level. I'd seen it before while on airliners, but this was something else entirely.
The view from the Johnson Ridge Observatory. Johnson Ridge was renamed after US Geological Survey scientist David Johnson, who was stationed on the ridge during the eruption, and was killed by the blast. His body was never found.
I took my old refractor telescope with me on a whim, and I'm glad I did! I started looking around the crater with it and spotted some steam coming off the younger of the two lava domes. (Please forgive the poor quality... I took this through the eyepiece of the telescope with my cellphone camera...)
Another shot, not quite as good.
The younger lava dome formed from 2004 to 2008, and is reportedly still hot (not warm, hot) to the touch, even nearly a decade later.
