By Sid Perkins
Just a stone’s throw north of Mount St. Helens, the oddly hummocky terrain is covered with a patchwork of vegetation and small ponds. Sediment-rich rivers thread through and meander across floodplains once hidden beneath lush, tall forests. Although harshly pruned in the recent past, the region’s tree of life is beginning to sprout with vigor.
It has been nearly 30 years since the largest volcanic eruption ever observed in the lower 48 states pulverized the top of Mount St. Helens into a roiling cloud of rock and ash. A 550-square-kilometer swath of the Pacific Northwest — an area about three times the size of the District of Columbia — was almost immediately transformed from vibrant ecosystem to denuded wasteland.