After living in Portland for 10 years I finally ventured up to Mt. St Helen's! Steph had some passes she had pre-purchased months ago (there are only 100 people allowed on the mountain per day). I thought "12 mile hike no big deal". I quickly learned, and am still learning 4 days later with blown up quads that being a reasonably strong runner and cyclist doesn't mean crap when you are ascending over 4000 feet of elevation gain, climbing over boulders, then using muscles you never knew you had to break and descend down the same 4000 feet. am clearly not outfitted for hiking (I am wearing cycling shorts with gator and hiking boots). Nick thought I looked dead sexy!
Started the climb 2 miles from where you see the trees in the picture. At this point we were barely an hour into the hike.
So much energy expended after an hour and a half we had to stop for a snack.
Where the true mountain climbing started. No, the rocks are not background, this is what we crawled over for a few miles as we pushed upwards. I thought I had turrets bad until I met Mark! He couldn't hold back with the comment "Yea, there is a lot of cows up here" as an urban cowboy passed on on the way down (some random guy in a cowboy hat). He retorted with some disparaging remark about my cycling shorts ;-) Another guy was coming down the mountain and when I told him I was from Portland Mark replied "she's from Tigard" I then fictitiously told the man Mark was from Coeur d' Alene Idaho. Since I incessantly joke about "white trash North Idaho" the inner circle laughed as expected. What was disturbing was the 10 year old boy who overheard also started laughing. They must have had white supremacy week during his history class that week.
Here is one of those volcanic movement monitoring thingy's. I was trying to simulate kissing my ass good by in the event this started screaming/flashing while we are on the mountain. For those of you still wondering, Mt. St. Helen's is indeed still an active volcano.
Finally reached the summit about 4.5 hours later. Above the clouds (not steam).
Another amazing view from the top.
Bull Lestor (double click on image to view name)
Found this little treat posted on the window outside of Fat Jacks (where we call the place we sign in/sign out). If you ever bear witness to the area between the Couve and Mt St Helen's running across characters like this is not the least bit shocking. This particular catch had an affinity for 15 year old girls in wheelchairs. Nice.
One of 5 people we saw stop and look at the sign within 5 minutes. We were all hoping this woman was not looking for a baby sitter.
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