Mount St Helens

M

milani74

Joined
Feb 15, 2009
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I have a list of Cascade volcanos that I want to climb and this was on it. We've had amazing weather here the last week and the forecast called for some summer weather this week end. I took advantage of it and completed an overnighter to climb Mount St Helens which is still a very active volcano. There is still a lot of snow above 3500 ft so I used the winter climbing route known as the Worm Flows and uses trail number 244. Access is from the south side of the mountain, which to me is the more beautiful side. Anyways, enough talk. Hope you enjoy the pics.




The gear I brought:

Here is what the trail looks like. Since it was so warm, it was very tiring hiking through several feet of snow that was very soft. I didnt bring snow shoes, and I wished I had every step I took until I reached higher elevation.




This is looking out towards Mt Adams to the east at sunset.

More to follow:
 


Here is Mt Hood to the south.


I got an alpine start and was well under way when the sun came up.

Long trail down!

Finally made the top, and it was windy.

Rainier in the background with Spirit Lake below it.

Still steam coming out of the lava dome. Major activity I guess stopped in 06, but there is still lots going on down there.


 
It amazes me how much ash is still laying around. 30 years after the last eruption, there is still a lot of ash on top of the soil.


It also is humbling how much force was associated with the blast. It literally blew its top, but also blew half of the northern side with it. The horse shoe crater is enormous. This goes down 800 feet or so.

This was my knife of choice for the trip.
 
This is some phenomenal pics Bro!!! Thanks for the post and I agree, humbling indeed.
 
Thanks Russmo!

Bearhunter, I bet that would have been awesome. I've seen the lava canyons to the north east and can tell you that the lahars from previous blasts created 100 foot wall canyons. I read somewhere that the lahars traveled something like 60 mph for almost 15 miles.
 
Very Cool,
I also climbed it years ago before the event. I got to sign one of the early logs at the summit, and, I still live here in WA. St in the San Juan's. It has been amazing watching the rebirth of the areas blown down.
Best...
 
May 18, 1980...a day most folks that were in Washington/Oregon/Idaho remember well...hard to believe its coming up on 33 years. I think we still have some photos of me as a boy standing with the ash cloud way off in the distance. If you watch the footage of the event, its absolute amazing the scale of the force of the eruption...it wasn't just the cap of the mountain, but most of one side as well...incredible...

Awesome photos, thanks for sharing. Looks like you probably had a chilly night.

BOSS
 
The day the blast occurred, my father and climbing friends were getting ready to summit Mt. Baker which is near the Canadian border. The blast from St Helen's was so powerful that they heard it. At the time they thought that perhaps the Forest Service was blasting somewhere, but, one person laughed and said wouldn't it be funny if that was St. Helens going off. It wasn't until their descent that they would find out he was right! It is important to understand that people knew it was going to go, just not when.
Best...
 
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Great pics! The wife and I hiked that back in 200X, right before activity picked up. They closed it to hikers the next season due to the increase in activity. We did it in the summer. I just remember how deceiving the last bit is. Once you clear the rock, and it is just pumice and ash - two steps forward amounts to half a step. It was like being on one of those step machines. I loved it. And there is no better way to get such a visceral feel of the explosive force that occurred there, than to stand on the rim and "not see" the missing half of the mountain.
On a separate hike we ventured through the worm flows, with a dog. Wife's idea. Neither me or our chocolate lab(who I had to carry a good portion of the time) enjoyed that one.
 
Excellent post milani! It brings back memories of my younger days when six of us (friends from work) went out to climb Ranier in the mid '80s. We were blessed with clear weather that trip too. I remember looking back at St Helens from the flanks of Ranier, and distinctly seeing the blown out top. Also, a college roommate went to work at Boeing and sent us all little vials of that ash. I still have it around here somewhere.
 
Great climb Milani! Looks like an awesome couple days to be on the hill. Did you use snowshoes (i saw the 'pons on your pack)?

It seems I'm always the guy that says, "No, the snow's frozen enough so we won't need snowshoes" and then posthole the whole way up.... or bring them when on routes where you could jump up and down the whole to the top and never go above boot tops....
 
Nice pictures. Sounds like a fun trip. I need to go climb more volcanoes. Too bad it's the climbing part I don't like...
 
@ Boss1, The temps weren't bad but the wind is what really complicated matters. Close to the top it was about 35 degrees f, which was awesome. But with windchill, that temp was really closer to 20 degrees. I was able to find a spot where I camped just above treeline and while it was windy, I slept warm and cozy.


@RayAllen. Mt Baker looks fun to climb. While I feel really bad for the lives lost during Helens' eruption, it still must have been a vivid experience to have lived near it during the eruption.

@Odog27 From what I've read, thats one benefit to climbing in the spring/winter is that you avoid that steep ash during the last 1000 ft up. Unfortunately, that also means the rest of the climb is harder!

@Error, nice! I was thinking of grabbing some to show my kids. But the plan is to bring them back sometime and show them in person.

@fmmajor I unfortunately did not and I missed them dearly. I did exactly what you described and talked myself out of bringing them. I really need to find sub 22 inch snowshoes for days like this. Something light enough to not talk myself out of for days that the snow is ultra wet/slushy.

@Cicatriz Haha. The climb up isnt bad on this one and the glissade down was extremely fun!

@Big Chris thanks!
 
Right in my backyard.

Here are some photos I took of the eruption in 2005. I was losing light and had a crappy camera.

P7060064.jpg


P7060064autocorrected.jpg
 
Reading this thread made me remember May 18 1980...

I had to go look up the videos and watch them again.
 
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