Sitting in the gravel parking lot of North Fork Survivors in Toutle is a camouflage Humvee.
The military doesn’t use it, but rather museum and shop owner Joe Bongiovanni.
He bought the vehicle when it had just two doors and rebuilt the truck for “Bigfoot research,” he said.
But he’s ready to sell it to keep the lights on at his Mount St. Helens and Bigfoot interpretive center after a 2023 landslide blocked the highway to Johnston Ridge Observatory, and subsequently cut off his and other businesses that relied on the traffic.
Bongiovanni is a Bigfoot believer and devout researcher, but he also says he owns the most extensive Mount St. Helens artifact collection in perhaps the entire country. The history and story of those impacted by the eruption on May 18, 1980, outweighs his 7,000-plus pound Squatch mobile.
However, the landslide didn’t directly hit his or the other businesses along Spirit Lake Memorial Highway; it’s the signage along the highway that is causing problems.
Unclear messages
After the natural disaster, which washed out the 85-foot Spirit Lake Outlet Bridge and left tons of sediment behind, the Washington State Department of Transportation held optimism that the road would be available for the 2024 season.
However, after temporary repairs failed, WSDOT committed to a permanent repair, now slated to begin in summer 2026. Once complete, the U.S. Forest Service will need to restore power and connection to the Johnston Ridge Observatory before it reopens to the public.
The slide occurred near mile marker 49, but businesses such as North Fork Survivors near mile marker 19 are feeling its effects.
“The biggest issue I’m seeing is the DOT in the state of Washington keeps advertising ‘road closed,’” Bongiovanni said. “They’re not being specific. So what’s happening is, people are afraid to come up here. They don’t know what’s going on.”
Bongiovanni emphasized that all the viewpoints from Castle Rock to the closure are open. It’s only the last 3 miles of the road that leads to the Johnston Ridge Observatory that are closed.
Visitor centers such as Weyerhaeuser’s Forest Learning Center and the Mount St. Helens Science and Learning Center at Coldwater are still open. So are popular hiking spots like Hummocks Trail, Lake Trail, South Coldwater Trail and more.
But before reaching those sites, WSDOT displays three signs along Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, also known as State route 504, according to WSDOT communications consultant Sarah Hannon-Nein.
At milepost 0.7, a large overhead variable states, “Johnston R Observatory Closed” and “SR 504 Open to MP 45.”
A sign at milepost 44.9 reads “Gate Closed Ahead,” and a second sign at milepost 45.1 reads “Gate Closed.”
Greg Drew, owner of Drew’s Grocery 10 miles west of North Fork Survivors in Toutle, expressed his displeasure with signage at the bottom of the hill near Castle Rock.
“Instead of putting something positive on there — usually the message leads people to believe that the road is closed and there’s nothing up there,” he said. “So we have complained about that for years.”
A sign along Interstate-5 near Exit 49 also previously read “SR 504 MP 45.2 Closed,” “Johnston Ridge Observatory Closed” and “Coldwater Visitor Cntr Closed.”
That sign was removed altogether on Dec. 14, 2024, to “reduce potential impacts on local businesses,” Hannon-Nein said in an email. WSDOT also worked with businesses and other state departments to revise messaging at milepost 0.7, she added.
Bongiovanni said he reached out to local media to spread the word on what was open right after the landslide.
“(I) started telling people, ‘OK, it’s not closed completely,’” he said. “‘It’s just a small section. Everything’s still open, there’s still a lot to do whether you like camping, recreating, hiking, all that stuff. It’s all still available, just this one little piece of Johnston Ridge is missing.’”
Due to the drop in traffic, Bongiovanni estimates customers visits have lowered 90%.
An atypical season
From April to October visitors typically flock to the area to view Mount St. Helens, and businesses gather revenue along the way.
Around the spring, North Fork Survivors typically expect tourists from Europe, then international tourists from outside the Pacific Northwest, then those regionally.
This year, like last, has been quiet.
“We don’t have anybody here,” Bongiovanni said in early May. “Here it is, a glorious day, and all I have is a cat on the porch.”
A typical day in May would have 20 to 30 cars roll through. During its peak in June or July, Bongiovanni says the parking lot would be packed with cars, buses and a helicopter for tours.
The Fourth of July is typically the busiest weekend for the museum, but last year it was barren.
“We were literally sitting down here with a dead road,” Bongiovanni said.
Bongiovanni says his business has not received a paycheck since October of 2024. A slow day used to mean $1,000. Now, a slow day means $23 — if that.
“Like, how do you keep going?” said Bongiovanni, who added he’s had to dip into personal savings to make it through the winter for this spring. “We’re absolutely running on the absolute minimum to stay here to make sure that the property’s taken care of … taxes, electricity, all the essentials.”
He admitted he’s deeply worried about not only his business, but others along the 504 highway to which he has loyalty. For him, though, he’ll never stop preserving the history of the eruption.
“It doesn’t matter if I have to go around and sell my (Humvee) for $150 grand and put it into the museum,” Bongiovanni said. “This stuff here — I will not let this fall apart. It’s too important. Everything that’s in this building belongs to everybody in the Pacific Northwest and should be preserved.”
That includes the renowned Volvo of Reid Turner Blackburn, the 27-year-old Columbian newspaper photographer, who was claimed by the eruption. Bongiovanni received his and other vehicles from Clara Ottosen, who previously held them in her small museum, and are displayed at his, along with unseen artifacts.
But his projected $100,000 renovations to create an encased display for the vehicles has crumbled.
Laurelee Curcione, who handles the financial side of the business, says there’s always a significant amount of pressure, but now there “seems to be more.”
“We try to make a lot of commitments like getting the museum open — it’s not been an easy task,” Curcione said. “(Bongiovanni’s) personal thing is to keep the memories of these people alive in a respectful way.”
To keep the history of that fateful day alive, North Fork Survivors still relies on the mountain and its attraction.
“We’re on the precipice of creating something very new here for the Pacific Northwest, and I feel like we’re gonna get right to the finish line and have to give up,” Bongiovanni said.
A trickle-down effect
Julie Cox, who helps run Drew’s Grocery with her father Greg Drew, says the drop in traffic has significantly impacted her multigeneration, family-owned store.
Drew says it’s been a big change for his business, but the drop in traffic has been ”even more evident.”
“If not for a local community that is extremely supportive of us … and that gives us a lot of business, we’d be in really, really big trouble,” said Drew, whose family reopened their permanent store in April after a 2022 fire. “In fact, opening the doors to the new store would have been really difficult.”
Fire Mountain Grill, which has been a staple for the Toutle community, shut its doors for the 2025 season, despite being located 20 miles south of the closure. The restaurant released a statement on its website stating doors will reopen when road access is complete.
Drew says it’s not just the signage, but the condition of the area itself.
Last summer, Drew says he took a former college roommate for a drive up the mountain and, aside from Coldwater Lake, he felt “embarrassed.”
“Outside of the Weyerhaeuser (center), there’s nothing,” Drew said. “We’d pull out to the viewpoints — you can’t see anything because they’ve all grown up with brush — you can’t see the valley floor … Things have not gotten better up there, they have gotten steadily worse, from my perspective, and it’s a real concern.”
For the residents of Toutle, it’s been a battle to seek change and preserve history, but they’re resilient.
“Here we are in May, we’re less than a week before the (eruption) anniversary, and I have an empty parking lot,” Bongiovanni said on May 6. “Normal operations, I shouldn’t have an empty parking lot right now.”
But his plan remains to preserve the past, for the future.
“When you kick the bucket, what’s the mark you’re going to leave on the world? Mine is all of this stuff, instead of it being tossed into trash cans and forgotten, is to put it together. When I’m not here anymore, it can move to the next (generation) as one piece, and I know it’s protected.”
“It doesn’t matter if I have to go around and sell my (Humvee) for $150 grand and put it into the museum,” Bongiovanni said. “This stuff here — I will not let this fall apart. It’s too important. Everything that’s in this building belongs to everybody in the Pacific Northwest and should be preserved.”
North Fork Survivors
Address: 9745 Spirit Lake Hwy, Toutle, WA 98649
Hours: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Every day.
Info: 360-274-6789
