I seem to recall a series of photos taken just as the big explosion was happening that caused the massive rock slide. There were people (maybe 2) posing with the mountain in the background, and I think they were on another nearby mountain, dressed in cold-weather gear. It looked as if they set up the camera for some shots of the people, and got lucky to take several showing the mountain’s initial explosion.
The people may have been knocked over, but I strongly suspect that’s a false memory on my part.
I have failed in my Googling to find these pics. Anybody else remember them, or better still have better search skills and can find them?
I remember the pic. One person was on the ground (snow of an adjacent peak) but it was from the sheer awesomeness of what they were experiencing as opposed to any actual physical force. I believe their ice axe began to hum from all the static electricity in the air caused by the tremendous ash cloud. Off to look for pic…
Ah, that makes sense. The reason I thought it was a false memory was because if they were knocked down from the force of the explosion, surely they would been obliterated and the camera destroyed.
That would be awesome. I have “The Complete National Geographic” but I’m at work now when this crossed my mind. I might have been able to find it with that, but maybe not, the damn Nat Geo software is buggy as hell.
They (I believe there were a party of four–a family, IIRC) were posing from the summit of nearby Mt. Adams. The series of photos are on display at the Johnston Ridge Observatory.
They weren’t knocked down, but they did soon find themselves enveloped in darkness…
Worse still, only the early editions of the software had all the photos; later editions omitted numerous pictures because of a court ruling about photographer’s royalties. I know that the pictures in question were among those deleted.
FWIW, here’s the caption that runs with the photos.
“An eyewitness to the unimaginable, Suzanne Christiansen drops awestruck on Mount Adams as the blast, 35 miles away, quickly spreads to a 20-mile halo of death.”
The photograph was indeed part of the display at the Johnston Ridge Observatory. I say was because the JRO displays had a $350,000 makeover, the first since the visitor center opened back in 1997. If I recall when I was up there last week (the JRO reopened for the season just yesterday) that photo is no longer part of the display. They do have a huge wall photo taken with two 8x10 negatives and then spliced together that is something behold. If you look real closely at the rim you can make out a dozen or so black dots which are really hikers who scaled the back of the volcano the day the image was taken.
FWIW, there is no film or video of the actual 1980 eruption. The sequence of photos many have illegally used to create their own video moments has been used legally for the very first (and only) time with one of the new exhibits at the JRO. From what I was told it’s a special one-off copyright allowance by the copyright owner.
The spectacular sequence I remember was a sequence of still shots from a photographer who was WAY too fucking close to the thing and dove under a car as the ash layer reached him (and died there but his camera was protected by his body + the car, if I recall correctly).