When Melissa extended the invitation to me to climb Mt. St. Helens with her and her friends back in January, I immediately accepted. I've always wanted to ski it but timing can be tricky, especially when you have a full spring schedule. Hiking with a group that already had it planned seemed like the easiest thing to do.
I debated carrying my skis up in order to ski down but ultimately took the good advice of others who had skied it in the spring and left them in the truck at the trailhead. However, the attentive reader will notice that I bothered to pack them.
I drove the truck and camper down to Cougar, WA, which is a good 4 hours away through the megopolis of Seattle, Tacoma, JBLM (Joint Base Lewis McChord), and Olympia. I timed my departure well enough but still traffic slowed through Seattle. However, I arrived in Cougar approximately an hour previous to the rest of the party. I used the time to repack for the 4th time.
At the appointed time I walked over to the pizza cafe and met 5 others who would be climbing: the organizer, Erin, and her co-Delta pilot friends Dennis, Kelly and Susan, and Melissa of course. We ate our pizzas then packed up the rest for tomorrow's lunch. I followed Dennis up to Climbers Bivuoac where we would both camp. The rest were sharing lodging in Cougar and would have a 30-minute drive in the morning.
Climbers Bivuoac is a great place to camp prior to the climb. There's a view of the objective, which I wish I would've photographed in the evening light rather than the bright glaring morning light. The other parties camped there have the same plan so the entire place gets quiet around dark. At that time, Dennis went to his tent and I settled into my comfy camper and slept reasonably well in spite of dreaming that I missed waking up to my alarm.
At 0600 mostly everyone in our party arrived. Introductions were made. I loaned out a day pack and two ice axes from my climbing stash. Group photos were taken and then we were off at a surprisingly on-time departure of 0630.
Melissa and I made the most of the easy trail and caught up on over a year's worth of life stories that we hadn't shared with each other. And then we were above tree line, at the rocky shoulder of Monitor Ridge, our route.
For the most part, Melissa, Dennis, and I lead the way up the rocky part of the route. I had a grouchy moment where I felt like my views were constricted by the darn boulders. I kept expecting a wowza view over every rocky hump. Instead there was more rocks in front.
Then finally we topped that last rocky hump and saw our objective up a steep pumice slope. The wind sandblasted us, knocked off my hat, blew any warmth from our bodies. We put on jackets, long sleeves, battened down the hatches, attached loose hats firmly to packs. And then we were inexplicably at the crater rim, where the wind was even more inexplicably calm. Happiness washed over me, which I'd love to explain but simply can't at the moment.
The three of us attempted the summit but the final two snow patches were too steep and hard/icy to cross in hiking boots. Even self arrest with ice axes would be unlikely due to the pitch and hardness of the snow field. We went back to the non-windy spot on the rim and waited for the rest of our party, ate lefotver pizza (in my case), enjoyed the fabulous views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood and even Mt. Jefferson in the distance.
Around 1230, after we'd been on the summit for about 90 minutes, we started down. The glissade from the top looked a little sketchy, again due to the hardnessof the snow but the lower snow fields looked promising. Tromping down the pumice to the soft snow field went fast. The snow was soft enough to plunge step and avoid the rocky route down. We made good time down to the point where there was no more snow.
At the top of the trail, Kelly opted to wait for his wife Susan. We hadn't seen the rest of the party since we left the summit. Melissa, Dennis, and I continued down the trail at an easy, relaxed pace until we reached the parking lot.
I set up a lawn chair, blanket, and offered my backpacking chair for waiting for the rest of the party. Not too long later they all came in. Happy reunion! Clothes changed, gear returned, trail dust wiped off, everyone off to their own obligations. It was late enough that I felt like I wouldn't get stuck in megopolis traffic. I had a brief, unintended detour in Woodland but then I was on the freeway for a solid 4 hours.
I'm happy to report that the truck with camper gets 15.5 mpg. I drove over 400 miles on one tank. I'm also happy to report that the Safeway in Shoreline has diesel, which I sorely needed at that point.
Here are the photos. Tomorrow I'm off for another adventure. Stay tuned!