jack smith/ap via komo

This week marks 35 years since Mount St. Helens gave Wash. state the world’s biggest vomit launch.

It blasted some 1,500 feet of itself into the skies.

It killed 57 people, but that could have been a lot worse if it hadn’t happened on a Sunday morning (when loggers weren’t working nearby timber stands).

I remember it as an exciting time—and as a great news story.

I was on the UW Daily staff at the time. We had a photographer who had a pilot’s license. On his own initiative, he rented a single-engine plane and flew it as close to the eruption-in-progress as authorities would let him.

The UW also had seismology and geophysics experts. The main seismograph readings of the eruption were recorded in a room on the campus hastily dubbed the “Volcano Crisis Center.”

You can read about the spectacle, and view stunning pix of the mountain before, during, and after, at KING, KOMO, the Tacoma News Tribune, USA Today, UW Libraries, and the outside-blogger portion of Forbes.com.