Know exactly what photo you mean (though I think it was Mt Adams, not Hood). I did see the plume all day, but even if I'd been up at 8:30am there were low clouds over Portland that burned off later in the morning, I think. At the least we wouldn't have seen the right side of the mtn.

Just unbelievable, that giant grey mushroom cloud, just dominating the sky though 50 miles away. And to think that was only 1/100th of what Pinatubo or Krakatau or Mazama (Crater Lake) pumped out!

It does have to be pretty disturbing to watch live as a mountain, a MOUNTAIN, one of the most obvious -- and pretty -- landmarks of the region, simply collapses and blows up.

A number of fellow Northwesterns and I had a flashbacks to St. Helens when the Trade Centers collapased. Eerily similar in that something so solid, permanent, defining of a whole skyline, simply fell down, turned to dust, and rushed outward in a choking grey surge.

Then again, St. Helens wasn't all that "permamnent", not even old compared to the works of man. The mountain was much younger than the pyramids, maybe younger than the Parthenon, and much of the summit area that fell down didn't even exist when Columbus sailed.