More than 40 years after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the region’s tourism industry, like the mountain’s landscape, is still struggling to return to pre-outburst standards.
Visits to private tourist sites near the volcano since the morning of May 18, 1980, when a column of volcanic ash erupted from Mount St. Helens, ultimately killing 57 people and destroying 200 homes and properties. The number of people is drastically decreasing. fishing, hunting, and harvesting timber.
Last year, there was another blow. The landslide destroyed a portion of Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, leaving it the only access to the U.S. Forest Service’s Johnston Ridge Observatory, a major tourist hub on the north side of the mountain where the crater is located.
The site is still blocked.
Mount St. Helens Institute has opened the former Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center as a major stop within the National Volcanic Monument. Now renamed the Science Learning Center, the U.S. Forest Service will operate the facility on weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through May 25, and every day thereafter.
The nonprofit institute plans a $35 million redesign of the center that will bring indoor lodging back to the mountain, expand trails and add on-site educational classes.
Decreasing number of tourists
Eco Park Resort is the closest private campground to the volcano. There are six cabins, 10 tent sites, and a series of trails across approximately 90 acres of wilderness just outside the national monument.
At its peak in 1995, the resort averaged 38 bus tours a day, and about 3.4 million visitors a year stayed at the resort, said EcoPark owner Mark Smith.
But over the past two decades, the eco park has only achieved a fraction of its former tourist numbers.
“Right now we have about 220,000 people, 200,000 visitors,” Smith said.
Smith’s family has been involved in Mount St. Helens tourism since before the 1980 explosion. Their history began in 1970 with Spirit Lake Lodge at the base of the volcano, a family business run by parents Dave and Mariam Smith.
When the eruption destroyed the lodge, the federal government bought the Smith family’s land and the family put the brakes on tourism until 1992, when they began offering off-road access tours to the blast zone. In 1993, the Smiths purchased the land that is now Eco Park Lodge near Hofstadt Creek, about 25 minutes south of the blast area.
Since then, the Smiths have built the resort’s stables and cafe, as well as more than 12 miles of trails. Tourism has been returning to the mountain for a while, Smith said.
At its peak in the mid-1990s, Ecopark had nine employees and several foot bus guides, he said, with an average of 40 guests per night at the campground and an average of 40 guests per night for the nightly dinner show. There were reportedly 50 to 55 guests.
Currently, there are only two employees at Eco Park: Smith and someone he hired to maintain the lawn, Smith said. He estimates that to break even, he will need about 150 properties each season with 500 beds.
He said tourism options, including accommodation around the mountain, are currently minimal.
The northern peak of the mountain is an hour from several hotels in Castle Rock. If someone wants to stay overnight indoors near the volcano, the closest options are Smith Eco Park and the Science Learning Center at Mount St. Helens Institute. The latter has just begun offering lodging and is the only indoor lodging option within the national monument. .
nonprofit organization planning
Despite Smith’s views on declining tourism, staff at Mount St. Helens Institute are working to move indoor accommodation closer to the blast zone and update nearby trails to allow for fishing and boating. It has raised millions of dollars.
The first step in the center’s planned multimillion-dollar expansion is to add more student and staff housing, allowing thousands more young people to sleep on the mountain. Pilot kayak rentals and camping are also included in this phase.
Starting today, students participating in the institute’s overnight adventure will be able to stay at the center and stay in bunk beds lining the walls of the V-shaped building’s large conference room.
“It’s like ‘Night at the Museum,'” said Alyssa Hoyt, acting executive director of the Mount St. Helens Institute.
While the novelty of sleeping in the visitor center is certainly exciting, Hoyt said the space wasn’t really designed for sleeping when it was first built in 1992.
The U.S. Forest Service Visitor Center closed to the public in 2007, and the institute began partnering with the Forest Service in 2011 to offer on-site educational programs and public events. In 2022, the Forest Service granted the Institute his 30-year permit to provide the following services: It’s time to raise funds and build your expansion.
Hoyt said the goal for the first phase of renovations is to provide accommodations for students to stay in groups or individual cabins. He said the plan is to accept 120 participants at a time, increasing the number of students in the institute’s annual field school from 500 to 6,000.
Hoyt said the institute also hopes to offer overnight stay options during the off-season for non-student visitors, and once these cabins become available, they can be used by people who don’t want to camp. It will also offer more options.
The second phase of the expansion is expected to include 40 RV/tent sites and serve 5,000 visitors per year, as well as updating the area’s hiking and mountain biking trails and providing fishing and It is also planned that you will be able to go to a boating spot.
The final phase will include updating the actual center to be more sustainable and better designed to accommodate the nonprofit’s outdoor education programs.
The nonprofit organization raised $1.7 million of its first phase goal of $6.1 million through sources including the Cowlitz Tribal Foundation, the Murdoch Foundation, the Washington Department of Conservation and Recreation, and private donations. Hoyt said the institute is trying to raise the remaining funding through private donations, government funding requests and foundations.
Next, the institute will work with the Forest Service and the Cowlitz Public Utility District to determine what kind of power infrastructure the center will need going forward and what it will allow within the national monument. .
Caleb Barber is a news reporter for the Daily News covering housing and business.
