My son, Kurt Nosler (who has since passed away) lived at Ariel at the time of the Mount St. Helens eruptions.
Roads to the mountain were ordered closed, so he and his brother-in-law, Bruce Summers, blazed a road of their own and used a Jeep to get within 4 miles of the mountain on the southwest side.
Here is one of the photos they took at the time of the eruption.
He informed us that there was an inexplicable, unearthly silence; not even the sound of a bird. Could the sound have traveled over the top?
They witnessed numerous lightning strikes inside the column which are not visible in the photo. Kurt’s father, Dan, and myself lived in Sutherlin, Ore., at the time and received a small dusting of ash observable on our car and barbecue.
