Him, and they were at least two serious attempts where booth was settled, armed, ready to go. The confederates lost and pushed booth over the edge. There are a group of people centered in washington, maryland in that area who are fascinated on the topic. Some of you will know, you can take tours of his escape route. He was on the run for 12 days and then finally captured below fredericksburg, virginia. There are bus tours that you can take. Ego to the place where they finally caught and shot him, make a stop at the home of doctor samuel a mod, the physician who helped with the broken leg. Some are descendents, some are just fans and bus. Thats,. [laughter] invariably it is an interesting collection of people. And there is another group centered around the booth family home. It is the house where John Wilkes Booth was a teenager. There are homes or you can go and step into places where these events occurred. Thank you all. I have to say, it is a great honor to have people come and listen to biographers talk about their craft and be interested in it, and it means a great deal to all of us who work in seclusion all these years. We appreciate your being here. [applause] youre watching book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here is a look at what is on prime time tonight. [inaudible conversations] hi, everybody. Thank you so much for coming out. Thank you so much for coming before we get started, a few housekeeping notes. If you take the time now to silence your cell phones. You have to turn it off. You can facebook and twitter and instagram. We would love for you to visit kramer. Com. You can see all the great events. Like tonight with steve olson with eruption. In his book steve interweaves the history and Science Behind the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in the account of what happened to those people who lived it and those who died. Particular connection. We are so glad he can be here with us tonight. One of the Great Stories i am sarah, by the way. One of the great things is bringing authors who have a wonderful local connection. You can see that tonight. Pleasetonight. Please join me in welcoming steve olson to kramer books. [applause] thank you, guys. [applause] i have never given a talk in kramer books before. But really i can hardly even get to tell you how to lead land to finally be doing this. My wife and our young newlyweds this is what we came for date night. We introduced to a reference to each other right over there who are now married and live in oregon not too terribly far away from where we lived in seattle. And memory is where i want to start tonight because the eruption of Mount Saint Helens on a sunday morning may 18 1980 was one of those events that was so dramatic that the people have a connection to the northwest, we tend to remember where we were when we heard the news, like i was working on this book people would tell me i remember, it was a sunday morning. I was coming back from church and heard on the radio. Or there is no indication of where we were. The sales barbecuing in my backyard. I grew up in barb in Washington State. There were about to get married three weeks away. The anniversary of the eruption is always a Good Opportunity for me to remember. We got married in rhode island. My grandmother who still lives in the small town where i lived brought back a big jar of ash edition new everyone will be interested. And i always figured that it was a good thing because i was exactly the kind of kid, interested in science and geology. One of those kids that says when the volcano started shaking in the late winter, well, i need to go see that. Out of grabbed a friend and jumped in the car and headed down 55, turned off and driven up to see the small puffs of ash that would come out of the volcano with 1st reawakened. And if i had done that on may 17 in my friend and i had camped on the volcano, i would not be here talking to you today. Fiftyseven people died from the eruption a sunday morning. The majority of them were succeeded by ash. Some people were blown off for it stops were swept away in the mudflows. A couple of people were crushed by a tree that fell on them, a couple people were burned by hot gas. Only three of those 57 were areas that the designated dangerous, and two of them have permission to be there. The only person i was breaking the law was the one victim we tender member best , cantankerous 83 yearold harry r chairman who refused to leave his lodge 4 miles away from the summit. So in the end they were just too close to an extremely dangerous okay now. With the danger zones to small . Was the eruption that much bigger than geologists that expected . And what can we learn from the tragedy of these 57 deaths . Those are the questions that inspired me to write this book. And what i discovered is this amazing, rich, and interconnected story about politics and money in science but also about life and the establishment of the National Forest in a story about the transcontinental railroad. It is really a story as big as the United States themselves. So the star began in rock island, illinois, a town on the Mississippi River 150 miles west of chicago. Can anyone get a napkin for me . It figures that i wouldi would come back to washington dc on a warm, hot day in march. So this is where a 21 yearold german immigrant moved. He took a job in the lumberyard tending the boiler. So intelligent and friendly and ambitious, and he rose quickly through the ranks. He later wrote, the secret of this way simply in my readiness to work. Within a few years thank you very much. I will pass them around once im done with them. Within a few years he and his brotherinlaw had bought and started expansion. At 1st they bought logs rafted down the Mississippi River and put those through the sawmill, but that this back theyre. A preview of the rest of the talk. [laughter] the real money way in buying land and chopping down the trees on that land. Beautiful white pine love virgin white pine. With the money he made it but more land in wisconsin and minnesota. He was an incredibly good businessman and lumber man. No other man in america knows so much about pine. In 1891 he with his family went from rock island the st. Paul minnesota so that he would be near the center of the logging operation as wisconsin became more cut over. And there he bought a house next to another remarkable businessman and visionary who is just about to complete the Great Northern railroad from st. Paul to seattle. If you ever go and have a chance to see the house, it is an amazing monument to the gilded age. The two men quickly became friends and or similar and often spent the evenings at each others houses. The only problem was he had a tendency to fall asleep early. The families are often go my living room and they would be engaged in some big monologue. So in 1899 in needed money to pay off a bond issue, but he have more land than money. By that time he had come to control not only the Great Northern railway, but the Northern Pacific railway. And in taking control of the Northern Pacific he came to control the immense landgrant. This was an immense amount of property that the federal government gave to the railroad as an inducement to build rail lines. So in return for building the line the Northern Pacific received about 40 million acres of western land. An area greater than the size of florida. Part of the land grab essentially from portland, oregono tacoma, washington between 1870 and 1873, the rail line that roughly parallels i five today. The landgrant extended out 40 miles on either side. Mount saint helens about 40 miles east. The mountain erupted, the top of the volcano was still on by the railroad. On january 31900, a few days and they announced one of the largest private land purchases in us history. For 6 an acre he and his Business Partners but almost a million acres of timber land, and with the purchase they made to fill in the area, he almost all of land between what yesterday i five and Mount Saint Helens. And this was one of the greatest investments that anyone is ever made anywhere after correcting for inflation i calculate that they made about 250 for every 1 they put into land. Fastforward to 1980, on march 20 of that year seismic detectors picked up a magnitude 4. 2 earthquake. We usually just get one or two. That did not happen in this case. Really cannot tell them apart and more. Bogen all just were sure the magma was on the move. Then about a week after the initial earthquake the small crater opened up on the top of Mount Saint Helens. This little puffs of human dash began to emerge. In march of 1980 they came back to life. The renewed activity was a national sensation. People came from all over the world to see this volcano. The last eruption of a volcano in the contiguous United States have been northern california. 1917. There were 70 aircraft all circling the mountain. They had to bring in air traffic control. At 1st they thought to limit access by setting up roadblocks. These people would exert pressure to move the roadblocks and gradually they got closer closer. The bigger problem is that the main roads are just a tiny fraction. He had been logging the area for days and in that process they had thousands of logging rights. Climb up to a ridgeline and set up camp. By the middle of april government officials realized the need a better way. The jewel line to the north and the long eastern edge. If anything came out they figured it would not be able to get over the ridgeline. They continue down to the south by the problem on the west side between the west and northwest side. At that point he was the last of an oldgrowth trees. Just gigantic, gigantic trees. So one thing government officials did is drew the line between the property in the land of the National Forest. The cell line is only Law Enforcement and scientists could go in the area. The problem was this red zone family 3 miles away from the summit. Then they drew another line and generally followed roads about 10 miles away. You could go in this area which is called the blue zone. They decided not to because they did not want to draw the zone into property. So their actually was the line where the zones relate together. About the same time something very troubling was happening with the volcano. It seemed to be caused by magma pooling underneath the volcano and pushing out the side. Very dramatically. 5 feet per day. And volcanologists really did not know what would happen. It will come cascading down the mountain at some point. But the general consensus was that it would simply be an avalanche and nothing else would happen. This just happens tohappened to be right on the side of the volcano with the danger zone was. So that was essentially the situation on the evening of saturday, may 17. The 1st clear weekend after a cloudy and rainy spring, and that evening about two dozen people were getting ready to spend the night in the area north of Mount Saint Helens. Harry truman who had refused to leave his lodge was getting ready for bed on the edge of spirit lake, again about 4 miles away from the mountain. Two people were in their cabin couple of miles down the river. They said they were doing a photographic study of the mountain from their deck. There were doing this just so that they could use the cabin, but they still got permission to be there on the weekend. The next closest person was geologist m johnson who was keeping watch about 5 miles north of the peak. Johnson had never been to this location until the day before the eruption. Filling in for a colleague who had to go away to talk with his graduate advisors in california about an educational program. He had barely escaped a volcanic eruption in alaska. He said ill go as long as someone can come the next day. On average about 7 miles away was a cartographer taking photographs for National Geographic as part of a project that they were doing, time lapse study of the mountain. That was scheduled to conclude after that weekend because it wasnt really worth it to keep taking photographs all the time. On the 2nd ridge there was a photographer with the colombian newspaper. But the other one on the Northern Ridge was a retired navy ham Radio Operator with a group called the radio amateur. So Washington State of the time do not have enough money to put monitors on the mountain and warn communities downstream if anything happened with the volcano. A group of amateurs decided that they would set of this network. Martin was the one closest, but other people were stationed around. So just past the 3rd ridge away from the mountain where Johnny Christie killian, newly wed couple from a small logging town camped at swan lake, sort of an alpine serves on the north side of the ridge. A choker setter for a warehouse or who during the week have been working a few miles away. One of three or 400 loggers who would have died if the volcano had erupted on a weekday rather than a weekend. Christie, his wife ran a forklift at the warehouse or no down in the valley. They have been married for about seven months, and their friends tell me that there were trying to have children. They could not even see the volcano from their campground. It was just out of sight over a ridge on the other side of the lake. Finally, there were three separate groups camping on the green river about 12 or 13 miles to the north. On the west side was a group of about six kids in the 20s from the longview area were out there doing the kinds of things that we were doing, drinking beer and things like that. On the eastern side there were two friends who had written their horses up a ridgeline the day before and were camped. Read between them was a family. Mike and his wife, and they had a four yearold daughter and a three monthold baby. They were taking the girls on a very 1st camping trip. I will tell you more in a moment. On sunday morning may 18 the sun rose at 536 into a completely club the sky. Other is just to the north dave johnson took some measurements. The bold expanded and contracted and then at 832 that morning something in the mountain gave way. There were a couple of geologists, and amazing coincidence. To geologists just happen to be flying over the mountain and they said they saw this crack appear on the mountain , this line from east to west, and the whole north side of the mountain to started cascading down. This avalanche occurred, but there was a gigantic cloud of gray and white which expanded. They barely got away. And then they turned around and looked back and saw this immense column . But it all happened. It was like watching a silent movie. The sound of the volcano went straight up and was muffled by the ash. So there was no sound for anyone right on the volcano. The landslide swept down, but before it can reach spirit lake this blast of hot ash and rock and gas overtook the avalanche. And this was traveling fast. Accelerated as it went. Absorbed energy. It could have gone for 500 miles. This thing hit the cabin around spirit lake and just blew them to smithereens. A few seconds later the avalanche came. About 200 feet of avalanche debris. The people who were down there were dead before they knew what was happening. Upon a ridgeline to the north dave johnson and martin watching this cloud approach. They were both on the radios and had time to communicate with people who are monitoring the radio lines including johnsons famous last words he said vancouver so they had a minute or so to look at it. It mustve looked like the end of the world as this was coming toward them. When they said johnson and martin it basically flung them in their vehicles and everything they had with them. It just snapped off trees like straws and flying all of this stuff onto the ridgeline and into the next valley and covered them with debris dash entries. Not only have they never found a johnson, they have not even found their vehicles. The 25foot motorhome that was never detected. So to the west of those ridges there was time to take a couple of photographs. So the next people were john and christy killian. The lake, which was nine miles away from the volcano, was completely devastated by the blast cloud. And as you can imagine, their story is tragic. Maybe this is a good time to mention just how immense the devastation from the blast cloud was. The area where the blast cloud knocked over trees is called the blowdown zone. If you superimpose a map on a map of washington, d. C. So that the volcano would be around National Park, then the blowdown zone extends all the way past bethesda and past landover. The last group ill tell you about is the moore family who was camped on the green river about 12 miles north of there. So even though there were fatalities in the groups both to the west and the east of the moores, the moores had camped in the shadow of Black Mountain which absorbed sort of the worst of the blast clouds influence. They were having breakfast that morning, and they noticed this cloud that was coming over the ridge to the south of them. And mike moore, who was a photographer, ran out and started taking photographs of the blast cloud. This cloud kept coming closer, and mike kept taking these photographs. Look, the photographs of the volcano never really capture some of the things that the eyewitnesses say that they saw. I mean, they described, for instance, the colors of these clouds. Mike said it was filled with greens and yellows and pink colors and churning like an egg beater, he said. That was what the cloud looked like. He said it was the most beautiful thing hes ever seen. So when this blast cloud reached their camp, and it did reach their camp, they took shelter in a hunter shack that was nearby. And they later said that the thunder from the ash cloud was so loud and so continuous to that they couldnt even hear each other speak. But they never saw a flash of lightning since the ash cloud was so thick. It was just completely dark where they were in that camp. So finally the ash began to let up, and mike and lou and bonnie and tara began to make their way down the green river. They would come across trees that had fallen across the trail, and they said, thats funny, this tree wasnt here yesterday, and they came around the corner, and this entire forest had fallen across the pathway, and they realized they were going to get across this forest covered with ash to be able to get back to their car. So by this time it was getting fairly late in the day. They knew that they were never going to be able to get to their car that day. So the moores were good campers. Theyd brought extra food, theyd sort of set himselfs up at camp and just themselves up at camp and just got ready to make the best of it. They slept well that night. When they woke up the next morning, they were not feeling bad. So they started making their way across this gigantic forest of blown down trees, and they heard a helicopter overhead, and the helicopter saw lous orange fleece that she was wearing, but and the helicopter decided the moores were the last people to be rescued, but the pilot couldnt land in these trees because there was no place to land. So what they did is they lowered a paramedic down to the ground, and they brought in a small helicopter. And the small helicopter hovered over an island x the paramedic got the moores all out to this island. The helicopter just put a single skid on this island, and they started loading the family in. But the pilot was very concerned about the helicopter getting overloaded, so he said leave the backpack, you cant leave the backpack. And one of the crew members started pulling it away from lou, and she says, theres a baby in it [laughter] and the pilot says, okay, keep the baby. So he left one of his crewmen behind. So at the beginning of my talk i said of the 57 People Killed in the eruption of mount st. Helens, all but three of them were outside of the red and blue zones. And i sort of think of them as the victim9 of history or the victims of a danger zone that was much too close to the volcano. A lumber tycoon who had moved next door to a Railroad Baron in st. Paul, and together they make a real estate transaction. And 80 years later it has consequences for these people who are camped around a dangerous volcano. So what do we learn from the eruption of mount st. Helens that might be relevant today . Theres three lessons that i draw from this experience. The first is that we have to take volcanos seriously. Scientists predict them, and they really are not all that good at predicting n exactly when a volcanos going to erupt. They issue advisories, and then they issue watches, and then they issue warnings. And these warnings can be inconvenient for the people and businesses and other people who are around these volcanos. For those of us who live in the northwest, you know, theyre sort of like fire drills. We have to engage in them if were going to be prepared when the real events happen. And the second lesson that i draw is that we have to gather information. So scientists and Public Safety officials learned a lot from the eruption of mount st. Helens. New technologies make it much easier to monitor the changes around a volcano and know what its going to do. And after the eruption of mount st. Helens, Public Safety officials became much better at setting danger zones so there wouldnt be fatalities like this, although there have been disasters since then. The federal government established the cascade volcano observatory in vancouver, washington, and scientists keep tabs not only on mount st. Helens, but all of the cascade volcanos that have the potential to erupt x. That observatory just has a fantastic web page and written materials. Its really quite interesting to read even for those of us, you know, for people who dont live in the northwest. And the third lesson i drew from this volcano is that we have to get ready. So in the northwest, we live in the presence of many hazards. Im sure youve all read about the earthquakes we can have and the tsunamis and the fires and floods that are possible there. And people elsewhere face plenty of these hazards too. In the 35 years that i lived in washington, d. C. Before i moved to seattle six years ago, i lived through several hurricanes and blizzards and even a small tornado in the area. So people in the northwest and elsewhere, they tend to react to discussions of natural disasters with fear which can kind of lead to pa rallies or fatalism paralysis or fatalism, but failing to prepare is preparing to fail, and the better prepared we are today, the better off were going to be when a real disaster does occur. The 1980 eruption of mount st. Helens was the most dramatic thing thats ever happened in Washington State. Thats why i decided to write this book when i moved out there. Its an event thats always going to be part of our history, and it still has a lot to teach us about living in one of the most beautiful parts of the United States but also one of the most dangerous. So id be happy to answer your questions about mount st. Helens. [applause] thanks. Yes. Yeah. I already read the book. Oh, great. Its really good. Wanted to ask you what did [inaudible] all the people that died, how can you tell us a little bit about who you chose to profile and why you didnt choose other people . Right. In the book i dont describe exactly what happened to all 57 people who died. I kind of thought that would be a little overwhelming, actually. So what i wanted to do was to describe the people in a particular sector of the volcano. I chose the area north because i could describe the blast cloud and, essentially, all those people in that part of the volcano. By describing their experiences, i hope you got a little bit of a sense of what happened to the other people. The rescues and trying to get those 57 trying to get the survivors. Yes. You chose [inaudible] directly impacted [inaudible] downstream mud flows and streams and sedimentation . Wow, this is a question about the mud flows, and they were, they were amazing, the mud flows. They blocked navigation on the Columbia River which is 50 or 60 miles away from mount st. Helens, and actually theres still a problem today. A huge amount of debris came down these rivers. Ruined the fishing for a few years. I think, you know, these big ships in portland were probably stuck there for a couple of months before they were able to make their way out to the pacific, before a channel could be dredged through the columbia. Even after the eruption a giant sediment dam was built across the main river that comes off the mountain, and theyre still dealing with this issue today of debris thats coming down from the volcano. Yes. Has there been another book written [inaudible] and were you daunted a little bit by im sure theres a long bibliography here. Feel that you could add, how did you have the courage the go ahead and write another book . Yeah, that was one of the things [inaudible] when i decided that i would write about this book, because there had been plenty of books written about the volcano. Part of my job was to read all those books and talk to everybody i possibly could so that i could try to sell the story as comprehensively as i can. I did come across information hadnt been available before. For instance, after the eruption the warehouser company and the state were sued by the families of several of the victims, and that case went to trial in 1984 in Washington State. What i discovered in doing this book is that all of the records from that court case, thousands of pages of records were still on file in king county courthouse, and no writer has ever seen those before, and those enabled me to fill in a lot of the gaps that were not necessarily in the other books. The other thing i tried to do was tell the whole story. This is sort of the last history that needs to be written about mount st. Helens. I tried to go all the way back to the beginning as well as what happened to people on the day of the eruption. Yes. Could you talk a little bit more of the setting of the red and blue zones . [inaudible] yes. The setting of the red and blue zones, these were Government Agencies that put these together, sort of interagency commissions. Part of the reasons for the trial was the belief that there had been a deal that was made to set the red and blue zones where they were so the warehousers could continue to work. That was the nature [inaudible] in this book is that no proof of collusion between st. George warehouser and the governor of Washington State has ever surfaced since then. But in a way they didnt have to talk directly for this to occur. Warehouser was such a powerful economic interest in Washington State at that time that government officials drawing these lines would not have drawn them in such a way as to cause inconvenience to warehouser. And that was, ultimately, the root cause of the tragedy that happened to these people who were too close to the volcano. Thats why those danger lines were there. Now, there was a proposal to expand the danger zones that was sitting on dixie lee rays desk when the volcano erupted. She had not she had been away on saturday which is when that proposal got to her desk and so did not sign it. And if she had signed that, the extends of the danger zone, if it had been put into place, most of the people that were killed would not have been in those areas. But it just never happened. One of those strange coincidences that happened with the volcano. Yes. Could you talk about rainier and how this has changed peoples thinking on rainier . No one seems too worried about it yeah. A question about Mount Rainier which is extremely active. Lots of people do worry about rainier. Even before the eruption in 1980 people had realized that significant communities in puget sound are built on top of mud flows that have come off the flanks of rainier. And especially after the eruption of mount st. Helens, people became even more aware that that was the case. Steps have been taken to try to protect people that are in those hazardous areas. For instance, if you go down onto those mud flows youll see signs which, essentially, look like tsunami signs. They say this is the way you have to escape. Because the same thing is going to happen in those mud nows. Sometimes those mud flows. If something comes off the side of the mountain and is making its way down the river valleys, you have about 10 or 15 minutes to escape which is pretty much the situation as with a tsunami on the coast. So people are aware of it, but its a very significant hazard, and there are many complications. If Something Like that were to happen in the middle of the night and you have 10 or 15 minutes to get to high ground, it its not going to be easy to do. Along those same lines, not just the mountain [inaudible] pretty much so, yeah. Thats a question about the city of tacoma. Its far enough from the volcano that people will have some warning, but its one of these hazards that people have to take seriously. There have to be drills, they have to have escape routes, and there are large groups that are difficult to get away from [inaudible] in case Something Like that did happen. Yes. Tell us what we have to worry about in yellowstone. Yeah, yellowstone. You know, even in the Pacific Northwest there have been eruptions that have been a lot bigger than mount st. Helens. Still in the story toes of the native americans, it formed crater lake, a hundred times more ash than mount st. Helens, so that would be a tremendous disaster all over the United States. Fortunately, yellowstone does not look like its going to have a major eruption anytime soon, but when it has erupted in the past, it has been, essentially, it could devastate potentially the entire eastern half of the United States. That last eruption occurred hundreds of years ago x theres no sign but, yeah, there have been major volcanic eruptions in the past, and there will continue to be many in the future. Its only a matter of time until some of those volcanos erupt again. Wondered if you could speak a little bit about sort of the Current Situation in the management of the area. I know last type i was out time i was out there, the logging, its run by park service and [inaudible] by, you know, other agencies. Just sort of seems sort of an interesting phenomenon [inaudible] feel like the Lessons Learned from it are consistent with kind of the current use of the land and the management if another eruption were to happen . Yeah. One thing i didnt talk about in this book talk but that i talk about in the book is the formation of the mount st. Helens National Protective or the National Monument that exists there today. There was a group that was working before the eruptions tried to set aside the area around mount st. Helens for Recreational Purposes because this was a working forest, and they were trying to have this area declared a wilderness area or hopefully a monument so it would be larger. What happened with the eruption was that this whole area theyd been trying to protect was devastated, so they had to, they had to change their strategy because the area that they wanted for recreation was now this gigantic blast zone. What they decided to do instead was scientists at that point were very interested in studying the area as an experiment to see how life comes back in areas that have been devastated. And they worked with scientific groups that were interested in setting aside this area for those scientific studies, and that did lead to the creation of the National Volcanic monument that exists today. So that area has been protected. Its not as large as people might have hoped. They certainly were advocating for a larger monument. But when you go visit the monument today, you can still see that area, and that area has been set aside. Its true there are still major threats to that area. Theres a Mining Company that wants to wine on the green river wants to mine on the green river, and theyre still allowed to do so. If they find ore that they can make money from in that area, they can open a giant mine right there. Theres still people fighting these battles. Warehousers still owns much of the land and uses it as a tree farm, essentially. They grow new trees and cut those down. Yes. The study about what [inaudible] it has been very interesting. So its a question about thises process this process of how how land comes back from this kind of devastation. Yes, its really been interesting. For instance, plants and animals would enter into the blast zone sort of from the edges growing in and do so in a deterministic way, and they found out the process is much more random than you would think. It depends sort of on the time of year and what animals happen to be around and what plants are the first to colonize that area. Then they sort of form a little area, and that becomes an island where other plants and animals can colonize in that area as well. So you see a lot of variability around the mountain. One interesting feature of it is that the area around mount st. Helens now is the most biodiverse area in all of Washington State. If you just let these natural processes occur, all kinds of plants and animals have entered into those areas as it started coming back. And the other day, i mean, when you go to mount st. Helens, its sort of this odd combination. Its still this incredibly devastated area, and yet vegetation is returning quickly to the mountains. It doesnt have huge old growth forest around it, it wont for another couple hundred years, but the trees are back, and its full of elk. Its a wonderful place to visit. I really recommend that everybody go to take a look at it. Yes. [inaudible conversations] were going skiing next winter at mount hood. Should we be worried . You might want to look at the observatory web site before you go. Its maybe maybe not a bad idea to check on things. [laughter] the thing about them is they do issue warning. Mount st. Helens was active for two finish. If you dont show up, ill take that [laughter] right are. If im there, then you know its safe to go. I keep a close eye on these volcanos now. Two more questions. [inaudible] surprised to hear that its [inaudible] even in 1980, but i would have assumed that its other than National Park [inaudible] all gone at this point. Is that accurate . There are pockets of old growth forest around Washington State. Theyre not easy to find, but they do exist. For instance, if you ever go to mount st. Helens and hike down the green ri y