Here's another story I'll never forget.....

A friend of my dad's who operated logging equipment for Weyerhauser at the time was up Hound hunting spring bear that morning. I forget exactly where he was but it was up near the blast zone along the Toutle river area.

I'm not sure how many of you have hunted with hounds but the idea behind it is you chain your dogs up on the dog box in the back of the pickup and drive around waiting for them to "strike" a bear....

Apparently he had his dogs up on the box when the mountain blew. He was so close to the mountain that in the panic of the ash storm he raced like hell to get out of the mountains and in the process of doing so the heat from the eruption actually burnt the hair virtually off of them and the gas/ash/burns actually killed all but one of his dogs... Before he made it out of the mountains his Toyota pickup crapped out from the ash and he ended up walking out nearly 11 miles that day with a flashlight and spent 1/2 day in the hospital from all the stuff he was breathing as well. When he tells the story he still doesn't understand how he's alive to this day, he swore he was a walking dead man.....

Keith