The ridge where David Johnston died now bears his name, as does the volcano observatory on its crest. People and mountain are moving on. The eruption was a phase in St. Helens' eons-old existence. The mountain began to rebuild itself immediately after the eruption, forming a lava dome that millennia hence could again become a cone. Life has returned to areas where nothing lived.
More species come in all the time.
Humans, ever less patient, have built visitors' centers and highways, edging closer to the crater. The first trees are now 60 feet tall. Still, it's heartbreaking for many to reconcile what the mountain is now and what it once was. Now he owns a concession stand in one of the lodges along Highway 504, the main tourist route to the mountain. It was quite an ecological happy spot.