The focus at Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center is the survival and recovery of plant and animal life within the Mount St. Helens blast zone.

A videowall theater introduces the eruption's impact to plants and animals within the blast zone. Exiting the theater visitors are surrounding by a section through the landscape providing survival stories hidden below the moonscape surface. Before and after views are seen through a wireframe model, and the interdependency of flora and fauna is represented in the Bioscape exhibit.

Futurescape gives the visitor various interpretations of the landscape based on future volcanic events. Ecoscape uses a series of interactive monitors offering the challenge of surviving future blasts based on species and location. The exhibit is concluded with the message of Stewardship provided by a video projected lifecast figure in the setting of an interpretive hike to a monument promontory.