It couldn’t last.  They could get the money to build them, but not to run them.

Currently for USFS operates one center, Johnston Ridge, which is closed due to a washout.  Two other centers (Mount St. Helens and Coldwater) have been given to other groups to operate.  Cowlitz County sold their Hoffstadt Visitor Center/Restaurant/Gift shop to a church group.  Only Weyerhaeuser’s Forest Learning Center is still operating as planned. 

 As I’ve watched all this unfold, I’ve learned one thing: people want something REAL.  When Coldwater Ridge Center first opened with its high-tech touch-screens and the talking manakin, the employees there added a box of rocks with an elk antler to the front desk.  This simple display was very popular, and didn’t cost $250,000.  I cringe (or cry) when I think of how these funds could have been spent providing visitors with access to the real Mount St. Helens.  For example, there are no campgrounds at the Monument, despite that fact that congress directed they be built.  Several major trailheads have no legal easements.  A connecting trail that linked Mount Margaret to the Green River Trail was never built.  Castle Lake was supposed to have a trail access down the old logging road.  The Coldwater Valley lacks a planned a boat dock with campsites. 

But I digress (and get depressed).  Back to the Visitor Center situation today.  Three centers are open to the public.

Mount St. Helens Visitor Center: $5 per person entry for adult.  The updated exhibits add the Native perspective to the area, while keeping the historic displays.  Kids love the walk-through volcano and seismograph exhibits.  They show a classic Mount St. Helens movie that is definitely worth the time.  Be sure to hike the boardwalk trail, too.

Forest Learning Center:  Free.  This center presents the story of the eruption told through the eyes of Weyerheuser, the largest private landowner impacted.  The company salvage logged and replanted its lands, and is currently logging those trees with mucho-gusto.  The original eruption-oriented displays remain, but are complimented with forestry information.  Be sure to check out the hands-on Discovery Room and they have a large and diverse gift shop.  Elk can often be spotted in the valley below the center

Coldwater Science Center: They honor all federal passes or $5 per car for parking. The ‘return of life’ theme is presented in original displays mixed with new additions.  The Science Center is being repurposed for overnight educational groups with big plans to add mini-lodges, a larger campground, and redesigned interior spaces.  Currently the site is once again the destination Forest Service visitor center while Johnston Ridge is closed. 

A bit of an update:  The DNR is applying for a grant to "buy" this land (from itself) and permanently protect it, possibly with another designation.  It seems odd to have to do this--buy public land to preserve it--but state DNR land is technically owned by a list of beneficiaries (schools, counties, prisons etc) that are entitled to funds generated from those lands.  If the land is preserved, and can no longer generate funds, the beneficiaries must be compensated. If you want the details, visit this website, click the project search tab at the top, then search project name "Toutle Ridge Fen." RCO Home Page - RCO Recreation and Conservation Office Home Page

Huckleberry picking is a treasured cultural and generational activity around Mount St. Helens.  As a child in the 1970's, I remember following my mother into the berry patches at the "turnaround" at the base of the volcano. There was an old road of pumice that had huckleberries growing under the scrubby trees.  "Plink, plink," the berries would hit the bottom of my coffee can.  "Is your bottom covered yet?" my mother would ask.  More berries hit my mouth than my bucket so it took along time to fill the bottom of my bucket.  With purple fingers, we would stop at icy Spirit Lake on our way home.  We were eating those berries in hotcakes on May 18, 1980 when the mountain destroyed that whole area.  

Fortunately, huckleberry picking has returned-- not legally to the Monument--but to areas outside of that designated area.  The problem now is that areas like Strawberry Mountain and Goat Mountain  have been overrun by commercial harvesters, that strip a hillside with gangs of young men.  Local families are competing just to get a few berries for their hotcakes.  The USFS paused commercial picking last summer, and now they are collecting data on this action, and on the impacts or benefits of commercial picking.  If you have ever picked huckleberries, or want to someday, please fill out the survey.  

A "collaborative" process is underway to study the geothermal potential at several sites around the state, including two at Mount St. Helens and one in the Columbia Gorge.  The High Lakes area around Forest, Hanaford, Elk and Fawn Lakes just outside the Monument boundary near Coldwater Science Center is one site, and an area east of Cougar is another.  Both locations would tap into the potential geothermal energy in faults around the volcano.  As most locals know, the High Lakes has been a cherished recreation area for generations, first before the eruption, then afterward as one of the few places to return to fish and camp.  Of course, that ended when Weyerhaeuser sold the land that once was crisscrossed with public trails.  My first camping trip was to Fawn Lake back in about 1978, when the lake could only be reached by trail.  This whole area was STUPIDLY left out of the Mount St. Helens Monument, mostly because private land there had large salvageable timber.  Although, as threats go I'm not particularly concerned that we will ever see a geothermal plant plopped on an active fault line, by the most explosive volcano in the lower 48, at 4500-foot elevation with no winter access and no existing infrastructure...but stranger things have happened. 

Here's the information:Geothermal energy collaborative process - Washington State Department of Ecology

Comment Geothermal Energy Collaborative Process Spring 2026

Back in the mid-1980's the sediment retention structure (aka sediment dam) was built across the North Toutle River to slow the flow of ash and sand into the lower valley.  The funding agreement between state of Washington and the federal government required the State to provide mitigation.   Besides the fish trap program, mitigation was mostly ignored.  As a first step, the sediment plain was transferred to the WDFW for "habitat and recreation" but without public access for recreation!    The WDFW acquired an easement for research, habitat, administration and educational purposes on the 3100 logging road, but it did not, and does not, include recreation.  For years a tiny 200-foot wide strip of Weyerhaeuser land blocked access to public land from the Spirit Lake Highway.  I lobbied Weyerhaeuser to allow people to hike across that strip for free, but they doubled-down on their permit requirement and specifically added the fee to cross there.  I called it the "infamous 200 feet" because this tiny strip blocked access to thousands of acres of public land. 

 Now the road that passes through that strip is open to the public for non-motorized access, and legal public access to the Mudflow and Hoffstadt Units of the St. Helens Wildlife Area has finally been secured. 

To add my two cents to this cost-cutting debate, I believe what an agency like the USFS needs is not so much to cut "waste, fraud, and abuse" but to cut PROCESS.  Any look on the Forest Service website under their projects page gives you an idea of the monumental pile of paper and staff time that is needed to just complete a simple task.  For example, the plan to remove the rotting Elk Bench restroom on the Lakes Trail is over a dozen pages.  The project is ok'ed for a quick "categorical exclusion" instead of a full NEPA review, but even so, it required SEVEN additional legal considerations beyond NEPA.  On top of this, NINE separate government specialists, from a botanist, archeologist, hydrologist, biologist, to historian and recreation specialist had to review it.  Most chose not to make a site visit, but imagine the staff time costs for these specialists just to reach a remote site like this: driving, hiking, and poking around.  EIGHT presidential executive orders had to be considered, ranging from migratory birds and hunting access to tribal consultation and environmental justice.  The entire toilet removal process will take about two years (they hope to actually remove the toilet in June of 2026.)

Now imagine what it would take for the USFS to do something a bit larger, like fix a washed out road or bridge.  A forester once told me what it was like to work on such a thing with the USFS.  He had a Forest Service easement road go through his private timberland before it reached the national forest.  They both used the road and it washed out in a bad rainstorm.  The USFS engineer came out and looked at the problem.  "This is a bad one; it will take two years; cost over a million dollars".  The private forester knew it was a fix his road contractor (following all state laws) could have done in a few weeks at a fraction of the cost.  The private forester offered to fix the washout and cost share with the federal agency.  Finding a way around the bloated federal process saved everyone alot of time and money with the same end result: an repaired road and a clean environment.  I hope some of that logic makes into the current cost-cutting push.