St Helens through the Forest St Helens View Opens Up View of Mount Hood St Helens Cloud Panorama Adams with Lenticular Clouds Yesterday's Ski Tracks Final Steps to the Crater Rim Matt Reaching Crater Rim Amar & Matt at the Crater Rim Western Part of Crater Rim Crater and Lava Dome Crater Rim and Mount Rainier Resting with a View of Adams St Helens Seismic Station St Helens Contrail Panorama Snowboarding with Poles The Truncated Cone of St Helens

This view looks down into the crater, showing the massive lava dome in the middle which formed in a series of effusive eruptions from 1980 to 1987. Since 1987, the heat output has decreased enough to allow a new glacier to form within the crater, fed by tremendous quantities of snow blown and avalanched over the crater rim, and then protected from ablation by the vertical crater walls helping block the sun. This mass of snow and ice is flowing out around the lava dome in two massive lobes, and apparently it contains steam caves similar to those found in the craters of Mount Rainier and Mount Baker.