As the volcano blew on May 18, 1980, 11-year-old Tara Bowen and her father flew a small plane close to the eruption. For the first time, she tells the story of the white-knuckle flight and reveals the photos that have been tucked away for 34 years.

On the bright morning of May 18, 1980, 11-year-old Tara Bowen got out of bed just before 9 a.m. with one thing on her mind: the rebroadcast of Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40” radio countdown.

Tara turned on the radio but didn’t find the Top 40; instead, local DJ’s were buzzing with news that Mount St. Helens was erupting.

Tara looked out of her Northwest Portland home to see ash spiraling 12 miles toward the heavens. She ran to the home office of her father, Richard, a retired economic geologist from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. She told him to look up from his desk; he did, and then he reached for the phone.

“I need a plane,” he said to his friend, a fellow private pilot who often flew with him in rented planes from the small Troutdale airport just east of town. Richard then turned to Tara.

“Want to come along?”

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Richard Bowen

Richard grabbed his camera and headed to the car. He considered the activity of Mount St. Helens to be the geologic event of his life. In the two months leading up to the explosion, he logged 15 hours in gliders and small planes as he photographed and documented the mountain’s small and not-so-small explosions for his personal records.

As Richard drove east on Interstate 84, Tara felt lucky because they weren’t stuck in the clogged westbound lanes. Then she realized that the westbound cars were heading away from the mountain, and the eastbound vehicles seemed to be only fire trucks, police cars and ambulances.

Richard drove onto the tarmac and right up to the Cessna 172, tail number N75827. His friend, who’d finished the preflight check, was waiting with his camera.

Richard felt confident in this plane. It was his regular rental, and he knew its quirks. Tara climbed into the back of the four-seater, and Richard and his friend climbed in front. Richard taxied onto the runway, pushed the throttle forward and lifted the plane into the sky. He first turned north, and then east toward the mountain.

Richard stayed quiet as he flew. He was a veteran and father of four daughters and one son, and, according his wife, Janis, he never got a word in anyway, so what was the point of trying to talk? He’d fallen in love with geology, he often said, because “rocks don’t talk back.”

As the plane approached the mountain, Richard finally began to speak.

“We’re over the yellow zone. Now we’re in the red zone.”

Tara saw lightning the likes of which she’d never seen before: red, pink, purple. The turbulent air, full of debris, felt as though it were boiling. She prepared to say something and then noticed that neither man was flying the plane. Both were taking pictures as they flew west.

Richard then put down the camera, turned the plane around to the east, and kept shooting as he flew along the edge of the red zone. As he did so, Tara noticed a helicopter disappear into the steam and ash.

Tara had flown enough with her father in times past that she’d had the opportunity to take the controls a time or two. She feared her father would ask her to do it again so he could take better pictures. Finally, fear got the best of her and she spoke up.

“I think we’re close enough,” she said.

“We’ll just take one more pass.”

Instead, he continued to fly for at least one more hour, according to the logbook. During that time, Tara remembers her father blurting out observations with a passion she’d rarely heard.

“Look at the trees,” he said. “They’re falling like toothpicks!”

After an excruciatingly long two hours for Tara, Richard finally steered the Cessna back to Troutdale. The adrenaline-fueled trio bantered on the tarmac in high-pitched tones as the mountain continued to erupt in the background. Tara hardly remembers what was said – she was just happy to be on the ground.

Tara Bowen at about age seven.

When they arrived home, Tara ran to tell her mother the story of the flight. Janis had wondered where they were: Richard hadn’t even told her they were leaving the house. Janis knew her husband was the type of guy who pursued his fascinations to fullest; the man who’d once courted her by driving 120 mph on Interstate 5 in a red-roofed, white-walled, 50’s-era Jaguar was always going to do what he wanted, no matter what anyone said. “What’s the point of being mad at him?” she thought to herself – it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, her family just had a great adventure.

Richard turned the photos he’d taken into slides and meticulously labeled and organized them. Then, the binder sat largely untouched in a hallway closet for the next 34 years. Richard was not a philosopher. He had no time for religion. He was a scientist. The explosion was predictable, it occurred, he witnessed it, and then he moved on. The past was the past, and there was no need to promote or brag. It was his scientist’s affect that drove him to capture the pictures, and it was that same affect that kept the most spectacular photographs of the historic eruption from public view for the next few decades.