Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens

by Steve Olson

One surprising observation was how quickly and extravagantly life returned to the mountain—and how much the process was dependent on chance. In part, the recovery was shaped by the timing of the eruption. Because much of the high country was still covered by snow when the volcano erupted, pocket gophers, deer mice, shrews, voles, and other small mammals were still in their burrows, and some of them survived the eruption. Eating buried roots and bulbs, they mixed underlying soil with the sterile ash, which enabled seeds to take root. Frogs, newts, salamanders, and other amphibians survived in the mud of lakes and rivers, emerging to a hostile environment that killed many but not all of them. The wind carried seeds, insects, spiders, and insect eggs from the surrounding forests. In the first several months after the eruption, more than 120 kinds of spiders wafted onto the Pumice Plain, some having traveled more than sixty miles. Most died, but their carcasses provided nutrients that later colonizers could use.