From Washington To You
Johnston Ridge Observatory building in snow with Mount St. Helens in the distance.
Photograph by Elliot Endo, U.S. Geological Survey, December 9, 2005, courtesy U.S. Forest Service. Public domain.

From Washington to you

Johnston Ridge Observatory

Johnston Ridge Observatory · Cowlitz County · named for David Johnston, May 18, 1980

The observatory sits in the center of the 1980 blast zone, about 5 miles north of the crater, and is named for the USGS volcanologist who died on duty that morning.

Johnston Ridge Observatory is open seasonally and is located on Johnston Ridge in the center of the 1980 blast zone approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of the Mount St. Helens summit. The ridge was named in honor of David Johnston, the USGS volcanologist who was on duty at the USGS Coldwater II observation point during the May 18, 1980, eruption.

He was one of 57 people who lost their lives in the eruption. A USGS photograph on the same official page shows Johnston at Coldwater II at 1900 hours on May 17, 1980. The caption states he did not survive the next day's eruption, and that Coldwater II would eventually be renamed Johnston Ridge.

The observatory building houses seismic, deformation, and other monitoring equipment that relays data to the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory for analysis. It stands inside Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, established in 1982 on 445 km² (110,000 acres) and managed by the USDA Forest Service.

  • Geography & Geology
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Last reviewed: September 20, 2026

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