Mt St. Helens Hike

This was the pinnacle hike of the year for Summer and I. It was
the hardest, highest, most challenging and most beautiful hike
of the year, and we have gone on some great hikes. The
Mt St Helens trail head starts at an elevation of
3,600 feet and the top rim of the summit is 8,365
feet, nearly a mile up. The hike was 9.6 miles long and took
most of the day. Along with your run of the mill hiking, we had to
climb and scramble over rocks and boulders and walk almost
of mile in dust and sand at the summit.

The trail starts with a beautiful hike in the forest along the base
of Mt St Helens.

This is where the tree line stops and just ahead is where the
bouldering section begins. It was here that the group
of Summer's coworkers really broke up. Of the 11 hikers only
5 of us made the entire trip to the summit.

Some great views from the edge of the tree line

The beginning of the rocks. It was over a mile of climbing
up and around these rocks. And if it looks steep it's because it was.
Some areas were like climbing up a ladder of rocks.

It was amazing to see the massive size of the boulders
the eruption moved.

Taking a break above the first section of rocks.

This picture gives some perspective of all the rocks that had to be
climbed, and this is only about 1/2 the way up the rocky section.

Summer at the transition to the summit. The last mile is steep
ash and sand over for a mile. It was like walking in place because
with each step up we would slide back almost to where we started
due to the loose sand and steep slope. We also had to zig-zag
up some areas as they were too steep to walk straight up.

The area between the rocks and boulders and the ash summit.

As we went up it seemed like we were on the last hill several times
because we couldn't see over the ridge due to the steep slope.
But we would reach the top of one hill to find another steeper
section above. The higher up the steeper and
harder the hike became.

At last the summit. 8,365 feet up looking down at the crater and
Mt. Rainer in the distance.

The left side of the crater from our position.

And the right side. The colors of the cliffs were amazing.

And here is a panorama of the entire crater.

Here we are, we made it to the top!

This is the new mound that started forming a few years ago in
the center of the crater. They say it grows in size each day
about the same size as and 18-wheeler truck. It now reaches
almost both sides of the crater.

I like this picture because it shows how small the ledge at the
top is. We climbed up from the right and had a ledge of about
10 feet before the cliff drops off into the crater.

Some hikers making the way up the hill. You can see how steep
and long this section of the hike is.

On the way back down looking up at the
rocks we just walked through.