Shot From the Hip

2 or 3 weeks before my trip to Portland I had decided that I would go to Mt. St. Helens.  It was more of a whim really.  It was a short drive from Portland, so why not.  I did a quick Google search and it seemed like good fun and good prep for Half Dome.  To get ready I read the top 10 essentials and even called the trail rangers but pretty much just ignored all of their recommendations.  I mean crampons and an ice axe in the middle of June? I did get some gaiters, but that was about it. 

Well, we checked-in at Jack's Restaurant and immediately proceeded to the trail.  The weather was supposedly 85+ degrees last weekend so I thought we might see some remnants of snow at the top.  Here is the beginning of the trail.

What we thought would be a normal hike would be anything but.  Except for brief patches, snow was everywhere.  Everyone that we saw getting ready at the parking lot had crampons and ice axes.  Most had hard boots.  We just had our normal hiking boots.

It was a beautiful morning, it was pretty brisk but it got warm pretty fast as Eric was booking up the mountain.

I had not expected such cold weather.  I had brought gloves for the boulder field but those were not insulated.  I pulled a really really old pair of insulated gloves out of my trunk. They were mismatched but were warm.  From the trail head to the timberline is about 2 miles.  We did it in about 53 minutes.  We were making good time.  I'm no used to starting that fast, but oh, well. 

The trail we took was the 9 mile summer trail and it had just opened up. Thankfully there has been enough traffic for us to follow the footsteps.  At the end of of the timberline was the boulder fields.


As we came out of the timberline though, there were multiple tracks and in fact the more prominent tracks are to the right.  We walked up little and then saw some folks to our left. They seemed to know where they were going, so we decided to follow them.  Who knows where that right trail would have taken us

At the beginning of the boulder field, there is no longer a prominent trail. What we had to do then was follow markers.  You can see it in the picture below.  As clouds would roll in, it is very difficult to see unless you know where to look.  As we approached the other hikers, we then saw that first marker.  Here is where crampons and ice axes are important.

Eric climbing up that first slope.  Basically we had to take a step, kick in our toes, push up and repeat.  We definitely had to use both hands and feet.

At some points you can actually stand upright, but without crampons, it was still easier to be on all 4's.

Here Eric is using a hiking stick I had found.  It would prove valuable for only portions of the trail.

Then came the boulder field

Those with crampons would just walk along the snow on the left or right.  Eric and I had to climb the rocks.  The post here is another example of the markers and we had to follow to get to the top

Weather as you can tell so far has been relative good, but it was constantly changing

By now we were still jamming up the mountain with no time to look around.  The boulder field felt like it was going on forever.

As we got farther up, it got more and more overcast

Where is that post now?  At times visibility was only about 20 or 30 feet in front of you.  This was a bit disconcerting, but we pressed on.

Eventually the weather would clear up enough for us to see a marker
 

Here is a marker/weather station.  This would prove key later on in our journey.

As we got higher, the weather got significantly colder.  Earlier, we would see patches of snow/ice in the crevices, as we got higher, everything was frozen.

At least we were near the top.

Slowly the boulders got smaller and eventually we transitioned from the boulder field to the ash field.  Because the weather was still cold, the ice and snow helped pack in the ash.  It was still very much like walking in sand.  Not fun when  you're climbing up a mountain.

It was like a never ending treadmill.  We knew we were going up, but it seemed endless.  Every hill that looked like the top was not.

When we saw this cornice, we knew we were near the summit

This may not look like much, but we're still 30 minutes away from the summit

Little by little we worked our way up


We had made it above the clouds, but were still not quite to the top

Eventually we made it to the top

This was about as close to the edge as I would go.  The chunk of ice in front is just a chunk of snow.  Underneath at best is a pile of ash

A better view of a cornice to our left.  From here it is a bit more clear where chunks of the cornice had broken off.  I wanted to get a pic of the volcano, but I didn't want to take the risk, though I did think about it. 

Steam from the volcano?

Mount Adams in the horizon.  So how long did we take?  How about 4 hours.  After one hour in the timberline, it took us 3 hrs to go up the boulder fields and ash fields.  At this point, we guess that we were second to get up the mountain that day. We had passed a number of people, but we were only half  way as we still had to go down. We ate lunch and promptly started down the mountain

On the way down the blue sunny skies we had at the summit quickly disappeared into a fog of clouds.  Hmm...  Where are those markers?  This is where the trip got more interesting.  We had gotten up in 4 hours and honestly we had gotten up so fast that we didn't really pay attention to our surroundings as we just went marker to marker.  But what do you do when you can't see the markers.  I mean nothing looked familiar. At one point, the boulders got bigger and more difficult to navigate.  We then took a route that we thought would be an easier path.  We had walked down the wrong side, but we did not know it.  This side was definitely different.  As we got farther down,  we realized that it would be more and more difficult to go back.  At one point Eric and I got separated as we could no longer navigate the rocks and had to try to go through the snow.  He slid down a ways and from his vantage point, he saw the weather station and realized we were on the wrong side.  Since we did not have crampons and ice axes, continuing to slide would not have been a good idea.  So we decided to climb back up.  The thing with climbing is that once you commit, there is no going back.  From where we ended up, to navigate up, if a vertical face is 90 degrees, I would guess that I was climbing up at 75 degrees.  The rocks here were more jagged and loose, so not easy to find good footholds and hand holds.  This was the only time I put my camera away.  To make things worse it started snowing.  Not just the soft fluffy stuff dropping from the skies, but the heavy kind that pelts you with stings as it flies horizontal.  Something we did not need.  If I had slipped, the drop would have been quite disastrous, and the snow only made matters worse.  Eventually, by the grace of God I made it up to the top, but Eric was nowhere to be found.  I called out his name and no answer.  Maybe it was combination of snow and wind and not being on the right face, but no matter how many times we yelled we never heard each other.  I thought maybe he had tried to slide down and I would try to meet him at the next marker.  I called out his name again and eventually another hiker answered.  We talked briefly and then I proceeded to head down as quickly as I could.  At that point the snow died down a bit and I had not gotten very far and in the distance I hear Eric call my name.  I then ran to that side  and could hear him, but could not see him over the edge.  Apparently he had tried to climb up as well.  Had I not talked to the other hiker or if Eric had waited half a minute longer or if the wind picked up, I would not have heard him.  Eventually Eric found his way up.  This little adventure added about an hour to our trip.  The weather did clear up to where we could see the trail and markers.

But then the weather would get nasty and wind would pick up again.  From my vantage point, I am standing higher up, but you can see that the snow is pretty much horizontal.  Eventually we made it back down with total time being about 8 hrs 20 minutes, though if  you take out our little adventure, I think we could have finished in 7  or 7.5 hrs.  Not bad considering the trail is rated for 10-12 hrs.