Marble sno-park near St. Helens burns

Published 12:01 am Saturday, April 16, 2011

A log shelter at Marble Mountain Sno-Park — an imposing structure that for the last two decades has served as a gathering place for winter visitors to the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument to meet, green and warm up — is no more.

It was reduced to an ashen shell early Saturday morning by a fire of unknown cause.

“Fortunately, no one was hurt,” said Randy Peterson, Mount St. Helens recreation technician, who arrived at 7 a.m., just in time to see the structure — by then a roaring inferno — collapse.

“This was one of the nicest snow shelters in the state. It is a big loss to the Forest and local communities.”
Snowmobile enthusiast Terry Tanner of Lyle, a district representative to the Washington State Snowmobile Association, said the imposing structure was built in roughly 1990 and was maintained by the Mount St. Helens Trac Riders snowmobile club. Volunteers from the club regularly cleaned it, fixed whatever needed fixing and kept it stocked with firewood for the wood stove inside.

But it won’t be only snowmobilers who will feel the loss of the cabin, Tanner said.

“It got lots of multiple use, from cross-country skiers, snowmobilers, mountaineers climbing the mountain, snowshoers — a lot of people,” Tanner said. “It was a place where people could go in, warm up, dry their clothes out, cook stuff.

“It’s going to be a major impact.”

Peterson said the cause of the fire is under investigation and that Mount St. Helens staffers have cordoned off the remains of the shelter, which was still smoldering on Monday. The sno-park itself is open, though visitors are asked to stay away from the fire location.