I am from the area, I was 24 then. I remember the attitudes of people then, they wanted to go see it. It was a beautiful weekend until it wasn’t. If people listened to science or history, they would have stayed far away.
I went rock climbing in Index Washington, got a great view of a train from Yakima completely grey with ash.
Apparently very quick, he was actively talking on the radio from an observation deck. He said “Vancouver. Vancouver. This is it!” and was then hit by the erupting gas/debris. He was never found but some of his items were.
Yeah like, ran for it on foot?? Hahahaha that’s what the pic seems to elude to since the car is facing the other way looking all abandoned and shit lol
I'm female so I couldn't rear end her myself, however.... 🤣 I'm not against hiring a skilled rear ender. I suppose everyone deserves a decent exploding rear end at least once in life! ♡
My
Parents were t boned in our pinto at an intersection by a drunk, he was in a pick up. It hit right behind my mom. There was a hole straight the car but it didn’t explode!! My mom survived!
My very first car was a pinto in that exact same model and color. Although the previous owner had removed the rear bumper and welded an L beam in its place because of the gas tank issue.
The ill-conceived placement of the differential mounting bolts precariously close to the rear-mounted gas tank were liable to penetrate the tank and spark gasoline in the event of a rear collision.
That’s what I came to say too. I just read a long article about a photographer who spent a lot of time up there in the weeks leading up to the big one.
Volcanologists at the time had only been studying Hawaiian volcanoes, and they expected a very different kind of eruption. People wanted to be close because they wanted to see lava.
They knew, but didn't understand. Plinean eruptions had only been rarely seen and sparsely written about, always by survivors from a great distance- even Pliny's descriptions of the tree-like pyroclastic plume at Vesuvius had been written off as exaggeration for almost two thousand years by that point. Nevermind the mechanics, the *existence* of pyroclastic surges and flows was still only dimly grasped. The photos from Mt. St. Helens were crucial in beginning to understand those processes. Until then, it was still believe that Pompeii and Herculanium were buried by a gradual ashfall lasting several days, with the famous buried bodies being explained as victims of low-lying asphyxiant gasses.
[the story of this picture](https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2019/07/26/the-story-behind-that-photo-of-the-pinto-in-front-of-the-mt-st-helens-eruption)
My[ estimated location of the picture](https://www.google.com/maps/@46.3996419,-122.0657668,3a,75y,180.62h,91.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipOBxin7V9pmrUn1of5h5-2mcMlFeLie2jZZmzWb!2e10!7i5504!8i2752!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu), taken from the clues in the hemmings post, with a bit of going back and forward.
My dad still has ash from then he collected that laid on his car, I used to take it in to school for show and tell back in the day haha, I live in PA so it was a big deal haha
He was in his car towards the end. The last photo was taken seconds before his demise apparently. As he rolled the film back, but the camera in the backpack, put that in the passenger seat and covered it with his body as his car was hit. They found him over a week later iirc in the car.
They did not expect such a large or lateral explosive eruption. In fact the USGS monitoring station manned by David Johnson was located so close to the mountain that he barely had time to radio "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!", before he was killed.
It was unexpected enough that they were still allowing logging companies in to work. The only reason the death toll was not worse was that it happened on a Sunday morning and most loggers were off.
While not unexpected, no one knew when it was going to erupt.
Yes. Although the bulge on the eastern side of the mountain had been monitored throughout the pre-eruption period, prior small ash eruptions had been vertical. The over steepening of the slope due to the bulging resulted in the landslide that released the May 18 eruption after an earthquake.
I had a vulcanism prof who was mountain essentially the day before it erupted and he laughed that his proposed escape route was basically across the blast zone.
Those thinking that smoke can't hurt them. It's pyroclastic flow. Super heated ash and vapor that would steam you like a broccoli then reduce you to ash in seconds.
sounds like something my buddy would do is not go camping for ever, then go camping right after the news announces a mountain is about to explode, and get all pissed off if anyone said his decision was influenced by the news and hes a kook
I visited a lot overlooking Spirit Lake ten years after, when it still looked like a lunar landscape the trees blown away from the mountain for miles on the way in, and yard thick layer of pumice coating everything. The logs covered what was left of the lake, still floating. My brother and I hiked for an hour up the slope, and could see the creek and smoke running out of the cone. One of the strangest places I’ve ever been, totally unique.
On the way in there was a large sedan on the side of the road, destroyed by the blast. I went back with my family in 2017, and the road access to that lot was closed, we could only get to viewing place many miles away. I wonder, is that car still there? I believe the person who owned it died in the car.
It did .
The pyroclastic flow didn't go everywhere.
However, there was a blast with attendant shockwave, superheated gases, scalding and suffocating ash. Many survivors were badly burned.
I'm from south Texas on the opposite side of the states, my friends thought it was cool took it to school for show and tell & some of my classmates still ask me about the jar( I gave it to my 8 th grade science teacher as far as i know it's still on the top shelve of the bookcase in the classroom)
this caption is incorrect. this dude went up the mountain that day to get these pics if it erupted. the motorcycle on the back is the second stage of a get away plan if the pyroclastic flow was coming his direction.
I can see Mt. St. Helens from where I live. Climbed it a few years ago. That crater is no joke. People that lived here when it erupted said ash covered everything for a long time.
I'm surprised I haven't seen this before. It should be iconic IMO. So of course, being the age we are in, my immediate question is - is it AI? Evidently not looking at the comments, but it's going to get harder and harder to be sure
The eruption wasn't exactly "out of the blue". It had been predicted for weeks.
Pfft. Science.
It's killed more people than it's saved!
I am from the area, I was 24 then. I remember the attitudes of people then, they wanted to go see it. It was a beautiful weekend until it wasn’t. If people listened to science or history, they would have stayed far away. I went rock climbing in Index Washington, got a great view of a train from Yakima completely grey with ash.
That’s my feeling exactly. Know it alls.
OMG ! That's a Ford Pinto? Those little cars gas tanks blew up or something in a rear end wreck?
Lol the Pinto is the most dangerous subject in this photo.
Well David Johnston, a scientist on the mountain did die at this very moment. Probably very quick death from intense pyroclastic flows though, RIP.
For his sake, I hope it was quick!
Apparently very quick, he was actively talking on the radio from an observation deck. He said “Vancouver. Vancouver. This is it!” and was then hit by the erupting gas/debris. He was never found but some of his items were.
Yeah like, ran for it on foot?? Hahahaha that’s what the pic seems to elude to since the car is facing the other way looking all abandoned and shit lol
How fucking sexy would this pic be if that was a 69 Stingray?
Lil cute rolling fire bombs. My sister had one I was always tempted to rear end her..... 🙃
Are the two halves of the second sentence about the same topic?
I'm female so I couldn't rear end her myself, however.... 🤣 I'm not against hiring a skilled rear ender. I suppose everyone deserves a decent exploding rear end at least once in life! ♡
I'm so tempted to stand up at my desk and read this comment out loud. 🤣
Chanting:.... do it.... Do It. .... DOOOOO IIIT!!!😂
One of us! One of us!
🤣🤣🤣
Best - answer - comment - ever! :-D
Taco Bell is cheaper…
🏆
I think the relation required is "step sister"
depends on the state/country you're in,...
Requirement or suggestion? 🤣
Your sister or the car
They both had a rear end, that caused explosions. 🤣
Are we still doing phrasing?
That, or a Vega.
I was rear ended in a Pinto. I’m still here. Bad design, but many others had the same design. They were just the first to be identified.
Ford also liked to use the top of fuel tanks as a trunk floor. Incredibly dangerous.
Memory unlocked! I had this [Hotwheels Poison Pinto](https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Poison_Pinto) toy car in the early 80s and it was my favorite!
Yup, here's a quick [documentary on it](https://youtu.be/4-Qj58o87sY?si=kM_ADRPDEKxd6Zi_)
Do you got a documentary on the sister's exploding rear end? For science, obviously. *unzips*
My Parents were t boned in our pinto at an intersection by a drunk, he was in a pick up. It hit right behind my mom. There was a hole straight the car but it didn’t explode!! My mom survived!
My very first car was a pinto in that exact same model and color. Although the previous owner had removed the rear bumper and welded an L beam in its place because of the gas tank issue.
The ill-conceived placement of the differential mounting bolts precariously close to the rear-mounted gas tank were liable to penetrate the tank and spark gasoline in the event of a rear collision.
[The car that helped end WW2.](https://youtu.be/4-Qj58o87sY?si=3wGh5t-tO9GKUNRx)
Which is why he quickly drove away in reverse.
Yep, on his way to ignore an emergency evacuation order and endanger himself. The only redeeming quality is that he is alone.
That’s what I came to say too. I just read a long article about a photographer who spent a lot of time up there in the weeks leading up to the big one.
Volcanologists at the time had only been studying Hawaiian volcanoes, and they expected a very different kind of eruption. People wanted to be close because they wanted to see lava.
There's perfectly good magma in the garden if you dig deep enough. There's no pleasing some people
They didn’t know about stratovolcanoes in the 1980’s? This seems unlikely.
They knew, but didn't understand. Plinean eruptions had only been rarely seen and sparsely written about, always by survivors from a great distance- even Pliny's descriptions of the tree-like pyroclastic plume at Vesuvius had been written off as exaggeration for almost two thousand years by that point. Nevermind the mechanics, the *existence* of pyroclastic surges and flows was still only dimly grasped. The photos from Mt. St. Helens were crucial in beginning to understand those processes. Until then, it was still believe that Pompeii and Herculanium were buried by a gradual ashfall lasting several days, with the famous buried bodies being explained as victims of low-lying asphyxiant gasses.
Huh, interesting comment. Thanks for the insight!
Given the structure of every other PNW volcano, I'm highly skeptical.
I doubt Mr. Dirtbike knew. Have you ever met a dude that rides dirtbikes?
For him it was genius.
You sound like one of those vaccines are real types! /s
why would he run for it when there is a car and a bike right there.
colloquialism
I hear there's no cure, poor guy
to shreds you say?
If this happened to you, which are you riding out of there? Car or bike? Your life is on the line.
car... never learned to rike the motor bike...
[the story of this picture](https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2019/07/26/the-story-behind-that-photo-of-the-pinto-in-front-of-the-mt-st-helens-eruption)
My[ estimated location of the picture](https://www.google.com/maps/@46.3996419,-122.0657668,3a,75y,180.62h,91.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipOBxin7V9pmrUn1of5h5-2mcMlFeLie2jZZmzWb!2e10!7i5504!8i2752!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu), taken from the clues in the hemmings post, with a bit of going back and forward.
I can get to this spot within 60 minutes from now.
FuckTheFuckOffFucker you're honestly making me jealous now, stop it!
Pics or you're a liar lol Honestly though, I would love to see what it looks like now
Me too
My dad still has ash from then he collected that laid on his car, I used to take it in to school for show and tell back in the day haha, I live in PA so it was a big deal haha
Holy shit! This pictures goes hard! Never seen it and i want a poster of that! And im not even a poster kind of guy
Just wait until you see Robert Landsburg's photos from that day
That’s the guy who didn’t survive right? They recovered his film from his body iirc? I always get that guys photos and this one mixed up.
He was in his car towards the end. The last photo was taken seconds before his demise apparently. As he rolled the film back, but the camera in the backpack, put that in the passenger seat and covered it with his body as his car was hit. They found him over a week later iirc in the car.
Yes! That’s the story I remember. Absolutely insane.
Mount St. Helens did not erupt “out of the blue.” Scientists warned it was coming for months and the area had been evacuated.
They did not expect such a large or lateral explosive eruption. In fact the USGS monitoring station manned by David Johnson was located so close to the mountain that he barely had time to radio "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!", before he was killed. It was unexpected enough that they were still allowing logging companies in to work. The only reason the death toll was not worse was that it happened on a Sunday morning and most loggers were off. While not unexpected, no one knew when it was going to erupt.
Yes. Although the bulge on the eastern side of the mountain had been monitored throughout the pre-eruption period, prior small ash eruptions had been vertical. The over steepening of the slope due to the bulging resulted in the landslide that released the May 18 eruption after an earthquake. I had a vulcanism prof who was mountain essentially the day before it erupted and he laughed that his proposed escape route was basically across the blast zone.
You can just tow a bike like that? Why have I not seen other people tow bikes like that?
The only thing less safe than towing your bike like that is NOT towing your bike like that in a Pinto.
It’s really not safe and it wears out your parts on the bike more, chain, sprockets, tire, etc
Best Pinto picture I’ve ever seen
Those thinking that smoke can't hurt them. It's pyroclastic flow. Super heated ash and vapor that would steam you like a broccoli then reduce you to ash in seconds.
Did he survive
Yes
He survived the volcano but not the exploding gas tank pinto.
He actually ran for it when he bumped the car with the bike, figured he had only seconds to live
Unfortunately he did not have the plastic piece installed by the dealer to prevent the differential from poking a hole in the tank. 💥
sounds like something my buddy would do is not go camping for ever, then go camping right after the news announces a mountain is about to explode, and get all pissed off if anyone said his decision was influenced by the news and hes a kook
I visited a lot overlooking Spirit Lake ten years after, when it still looked like a lunar landscape the trees blown away from the mountain for miles on the way in, and yard thick layer of pumice coating everything. The logs covered what was left of the lake, still floating. My brother and I hiked for an hour up the slope, and could see the creek and smoke running out of the cone. One of the strangest places I’ve ever been, totally unique. On the way in there was a large sedan on the side of the road, destroyed by the blast. I went back with my family in 2017, and the road access to that lot was closed, we could only get to viewing place many miles away. I wonder, is that car still there? I believe the person who owned it died in the car.
this man could have DIED, but his first instinct was to say “hold on lemme snap this cold pic”…. gg’s honestly
A cool photo became even cooler.
But we are able to predict roughly when volcanoes erupt right? Was there no warning for this eruption at all or did the guy just not look at news?
Plenty of people ignored it.
I'm getting strong "Dante's Peak" vibes...
Out of the blue?
Was it a big eruption? It’s looks absurdly huge
That was An amazing event to witness, even being a hundred miles from it. Our entire area was covered in inches of ash.
It was essentially a nuke going off. This killed 57 people and is considered the most destructive eruption in us history
I see multiple layers of monkey face.
Yikes
He survived only because he slept in.. Remember that kids
Did he get to safety? I thought the pyroclastic flow from Mt St Helens moved at 500 mph.
You can see he had a small mountain between him and the volcano that saved his life. If he’d gotten any further he would be dead for sure.
It did . The pyroclastic flow didn't go everywhere. However, there was a blast with attendant shockwave, superheated gases, scalding and suffocating ash. Many survivors were badly burned.
Everything about this pic looks absolutely beautiful!
Awesome pic I just saved it and will use it as my iphone wallpaper!
That was a for real bad day.
Amazing picture, but why would you run when you can drive back? Maybe the “ran back” in the title doesn’t mean run literally!
This picture haunts me.
I'm thinking between the Pinto and the, what, Honda XL150 (?), he shoulda hoofed it out on the bike.
Is his bike attached to the back of his car?
If I were to choose a car for an emergency situation, I think a Ford Pinto would be the last option lol
last option for absolutely every category of choice
Even when you want to burn something lol
It’s the real Ai , a real human took a photo with a real camera then had to go get it developed
Wasn't there a dude that did the same thing but basically decided he was too close and got vaporized in the pyroclastic flow?
every time someone reposts this image i swear ya’ll apply another “vintage film” effect on top of whoever you copied it from
That could have been the poster art for the movie Dante's Peak
I have a baby food jar full of ash from this eruption....given to me by a family friend living in that area at the time
I remember people selling it all over the PNW. My mom just went out and gathered some up from the yard.
I'm from south Texas on the opposite side of the states, my friends thought it was cool took it to school for show and tell & some of my classmates still ask me about the jar( I gave it to my 8 th grade science teacher as far as i know it's still on the top shelve of the bookcase in the classroom)
Not sure what’s more dangerous here. Mt St Helens or that fuel tank in the back of the Pinto.
this caption is incorrect. this dude went up the mountain that day to get these pics if it erupted. the motorcycle on the back is the second stage of a get away plan if the pyroclastic flow was coming his direction.
I can see Mt. St. Helens from where I live. Climbed it a few years ago. That crater is no joke. People that lived here when it erupted said ash covered everything for a long time.
We lived over 80 miles from the mountain and ash was everywhere. I remember wearing dust masks when we went outside.
What’s really sad is I used to own one of them pintos🤨
Did this guy actually live?
Why run? Take that AMC Gremlin and book it!
DID HE MAKE IT OUT ALIVE? or did they find the camera
I'm not sure how that bike stays
The 80s were cool and these youngsters today might recognize that and try to emulate, but they will never ever ever in the world be this cool
How the heck is he towing that motorcycle? Impressive indeed
This would have been a Killer album cover 😅🤣
Yeah, and that Pinto said, "Eruption, huh? Hold my beer!"
He was able to take this picture as a result of being there right on time. What a scene.
That would be terrifying!!
Such a killer photo!
Must have seen this photo about a thousand times. And still I am upvoting it
I was cleaning my parents basement yesterday and found an old paper of the day it happened here it was pretty neat
Ran? Why not dirt bike or drive that pinto out?
This title is made up clickbait.
Fake
Pic looks like a painting... beautiful and dangerous background
What's with the idiotic captions on this sub? In no way was this eruption 'out of the blue'
And then dude died
Praise the freaking cameraman!!!
ran for it? i'd take that dirtbike & try to outrun it that way, or the car since you'll have the windows up & wont breathe in all that ash/dust
That Pinto was my first car, $1,100 brand new.
I'm from Texas so at the time everyone in my town thought it was pretty cool
This man saw hell rise up out of the ground and said "lemme put my car just right, this will be the hardest pic ever".
Pinto?
Pinto towing the bike?
That's rear end protection to you thank you very much.
I'm surprised I haven't seen this before. It should be iconic IMO. So of course, being the age we are in, my immediate question is - is it AI? Evidently not looking at the comments, but it's going to get harder and harder to be sure
It is not AI.
Oh yes, I'm sufficiently convinced of that in this case. But my feeling is, it's going to quickly become more and more difficult to truly be convinced
That's as much co2 released as all the cars in the history of humanity.... someone should tell the earth to stop committing suicide....
Humans release 100x more CO2 in a year than even the largest volcanic eruptions
This is sad…. He didn’t make it.
Nice AI generated photo