The road leading to Johnston Ridge Observatory and the visitor center itself remains closed two years following a landslide that dropped 300,000 cubic yards of debris onto the road and damaged the bridge.
Instead, the Science and Learning Center at Coldwater is opened on Saturday for tourists, just ahead of the 45th anniversary of the 1980 eruption on Sunday.
The center, near Coldwater Lake west of Johnston Ridge, will be open on weekends until June 15, then daily through Labor Day.
Only a few miles of Spirit Lake Memorial Highway remains closed at the gate that closes off the observatory during the winter.
Road work
Work on Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, also known as State route 504, will not begin until next spring to build a permanent two-lane roadway and bridge to the observatory, said Washington Department of Transportation spokesperson Sarah Hannon-Nein.
She said the work is expected to wrap up in summer 2026, but once the road is open, the U.S. Forest Service must restore power to the observatory and finish other updates before the center can reopen.
WSDOT plans to put the project out to bid in the fall.
A temporary road was built in 2023, but the site’s culverts collapsed four months later due to rainfall and other water flow, WSDOT reports.
WSDOT removed the temporary road to avoid impacts to the Spirit Lake outlet tunnel, which drains the lake created after the May 18, 1980, eruption and protects downstream communities from catastrophic floods.
When the area received its national volcanic monument designation in 1982, the state highway stopped near the area the sediment dam is located at milepost 21.
The sediment retention dam was built in 1989 on the North Fork of the Toutle River to retain debris flowing from the slopes of Mount St. Helens — an issue that continues today, 45 years later.
However, by 1988, work to extend Spirit Lake Memorial Highway another roughly 30 miles began, with Johnston Ridge Observatory opening in 1997.
Current visitor centers
Since the 2023 landslide, the U.S. Forest Service has operated the Mount St. Helens Institute's Science and Learning Center at Coldwater instead of the observatory.
The U.S. Forest Service's Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center first opened in 1993 and closed to the public in 2007. Since then, the institute has renamed the center.
The Mount St. Helens Institute partnered with the Forest Service and began offering some youth education programs and public events at the site in 2011, then had the Forest Service operate the visitor center when the landslide closed the observatory.
Science and Learning Center at Coldwater
Location: Milepost 43 on Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, or State route 504.
Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from May 17 through June 14; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. daily from June 15 to Labor Day, Sept. 1.
Info: www.fs.usda.gov/r06/giffordpinchot/recreation/science-and-learning-center-coldwater
