For these reasons, many local residents feel the mountain names should revert back to the Indian ones, just as Mt. McKinley Park was recently renamed Denali, for the native “Great One”.

There is another question to be disputed. Did the 1980 eruption of Loowit have something to do with a sequel in a never-ending drama? A curious fact is that a US Geological Survey Bulletin issued in the years before St. Helens eruption that blasted 2,300 feet off the summit, considered Mt. Hood to be to most likely to have volcanic activity. The still-steaming lava dome of Crater Rock on Hood was created only 250 years ago, and light gray pumice fragments where being scattered by intermittent eruptions up until the 1860’s.

This is also part of the reason I feel a Mt. St. Helens Volcanic Monument visitor needs to drive South 23 miles from Hood River, Oregon to camp at Lost Lake. Or drive, at least 20 miles North, to the community of Trout Lake to experience of the majesty of what is Washington State’s least known —yet perhaps the most magestic— snow capped volcano, Mt. Adams. Both peaks are so handsome you will understand why Loowit had difficulty making up her mind as which suitor to favor.(continued next page)