Just as I was getting the key out of my pocket to open my apartment door, my phone rang, and I scrambled to reach it. It was 11:30pm on a Thursday night. It turns out that someone I had messaged online earlier that evening would be able to give me a Mount Saint-Helens climbing pass on Friday morning at 8 am. I wasn’t expecting a response at all, especially since I only sent one message and there were many other requests posted. But I immediately said that I would meet him in the morning. I opened my apartment door and took a shower. I figured that since I would be at Mount Saint Helens on Friday, I would spend the whole weekend in that area and also try to tag Mount Adams, so I had to pack for a three day excursion. After a few hours of packing and logistical planning, I went to sleep for three and a half hours. I woke up at five a.m., brought my stuff to the car, did some last minute preparations, and headed off. The drive was beautiful. The sun rose right as I passed the South Waterfront and entered the bridge over the Willamette River in Portland. The whole sky glowed orange and lit up the glass buildings. I saw the silhouettes of Mount Saint Helens to my left and Mount Hood to my right as I drove north. After stopping for breakfast, my arrival time was thirty minutes before I was supposed to meet Peter, the guy who would give me my permit. I stopped by the Lewis River and enjoyed the cool fresh air as I watched the sun continuing to come up over the tops of the mountains. I arrived at 7:50 a.m., just as Peter arrived behind me. He immediately came over to me to introduce himself, as I had told him what I look like and what car I have, and gave me the pass. I was ready to climb. The hike started with two miles in the forest, and then wound through boulders and scree fields, with a couple of patchy snowfields, up one ridge to the summit. Many people rested on the top snowfield by the edge of the volcanic rim, even a Pomeranian. I smiled at everyone as I neared the summit, and someone even made the comment: “Can you at least look like you care?” I responded, “does it not look like I care?” And he said “well we all came crawling up here almost dying and here you are with a grin plastered on your face.” “Well, I do” I smiled. Little did he know I was quite winded but awkwardly didn’t know what facial expression to make as the whole summit crew watched me arrive alone. I walked up closer to the edge to peer over at the active volcano with steam bursting out several cracks. The man yelped as I got close to the edge, telling me to be careful. I rolled my eyes, looked over to my left and realized that there was a snowy cornice that was quite higher than where the people were currently sitting. I asked, “so is that the summit?” The man responded “well technically it looks like it.” That confused me a bit, so I figured I would go check out what seemed to be the highest point. The mountain first dipped down to a saddle, where there was an exposed rocky ridge that I stuck to, trying to keep my footing on rocks for as long as I could before entering the snowfield. There was a cliff to my right, and I knew this, but I stayed on the top edge since going down further to the left would mean wetter rocks and patches of snow I could slip on. There was a team of three middle-aged men that looked like they were trying to descend from the saddle in between the main resting area and the summit, where I was trying to go. One man had just started to traverse down and was complaining about the ice. Another shouted out to me as I picked my way across the ridge. He told me there was a cliff to the right (something I was obviously aware of) and that they had gone below the rocky ridge onto the snow to cut to the main saddle dip where they were currently standing. I had seen their tracks and was aware of their route. I moved one yard further from the cliff drop-off, but not onto the snowfield as he had recommended, as the man watched in order to appease him and not cause a commotion. I made my way down quickly to where they were standing in still the same location and heard the comment “she knows what she is doing,” and one of the men grunted a “good job” to me. “Thanks!” I responded, and then I asked them about why not so many people were going to summit. I thought that this group had, but it turns out they had not; I didn’t question it and continued on. Later, I realized why no one else had gone there that day. Figuring I had a late start and the snow would be soft enough to dig my feet into, I didn’t bring crampons or an ice axe. Later, while I climbed the ridge further on the left to what seemed to be the true summit, it was quite windy and the melted snow had frozen. I walked very slowly, trying not to slip as I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop myself on the steep snowfield. From afar, it looked like there were tracks, but upon closer inspection, I realized that those were days old, with new ice covering them. A cloud had been building as I was nearing the summit, and I had kept my eye on it the whole time. As I trudged up this windy icy ridge alone, the cloud continued to get larger, forming dark gray areas. I was nervous about this and the steep snow field but kept my head down and made sure to stay focused and proceed slowly as it was only another 100 meters or so to the summit. Doubt lingered in my mind the whole way up this steep, icy, windy, and solitary ridge. When I finally made it to the top, the cloud had somewhat dispersed. Relieved, I didn’t feel the need to rush down. From here, I could see the other “summit” with lots of people on it. The men that were trying to descend from the saddle had given up and started to walk back up to the main trail. After taking a few celebratory pictures, I carefully walked down again, back past the saddle, and sat on a boulder a little past the saddle near the ridge where there were no other people around. Here I listened to the mountain; it was really making amazing sounds. I could hear the crackling and bubbling of the magma below through giant fissures in the ground. I saw and heard rocks crumbling off and falling thousands of feet. Steam rose in the elevated middle bump of the crater. There were fissures on my left that were completely black, looking like gaping holes to the center of the earth. The rumbling, fizzling, and crackling noises combined with the view of the steam, fissures, and lava rock were absolutely spectacular and created an other-worldly sense. After pondering this for a while I headed back to where people were sitting and had my lunch. Then came the tedious descent down. The first part was rather fun as I skipped and ran down the scree field, accumulating lots of small rocks in my boots. The latter part was slow-going as I had to clamber over miles of lava rocks upon lava rocks, with giant hairy spiders constantly scurrying out of my way and the sun beating down relentlessly. I finally made it past the three miles of lava field and got to the forest, where the cool air of the shade was very welcoming. When I got back to the vehicle, I immediately took off my pack and shoes, sighing with relief. I then looked over a map to see which roads I would take and headed off. After several wrong turns, having to stop and look at my road map at each intersection and many hours later I made it to the where I wanted to be for the night, Peterson Prairie Campground. The route from Mount Saint-Helens to Peterson Prairie was stunning. I took a detour off the road to a place called Berry Fields. Here, the forest was very open, with blueberry bushes and blooming flowers covering the whole forest floor for miles. I saw an elk in a burnt part of the forest, and later saw a herd running through the flowers and long green grass. It was beautiful. After spending some time here taking pictures, I stopped at Mosquito Lake. As soon as I got out of the car and took a small path to the edge of the lake, a bald eagle swooped down and then back up again to land on top of a dead tree. The sun was in perfect position to where the water glittered brightly. The whole lake was lined with bright green grass, all the way to the water line. There was a stiff wind, creating choppy waves which made the sun’s reflection a constant moving masterpiece of glitter. The entire three hour long drive was deep in the wilderness. It winded through mountains, past lakes, and through beautiful forests. I passed only a couple of other vehicles on my whole drive there. The road was smooth and I had my windows rolled down and music playing the whole way, enjoying the perfect temperature and interesting storm cloud formations in the deep blue sky. The campground at Peterson Prairie was rather dark and dreary so I took a north road to check out some other campsites. I ended up stopping at Little Goose Forest Camp in an open forest near a creek. After organizing the back of my car a little, I laid out my sleeping pad, comforter, blanket, pillow, and sleeping bag and comfortably fell asleep with my bear mace and ice-axe an arm’s length away from me, just to be safe. As I had only slept three and a half hours the past night and just completed a 10 mile, 4,600 ft elevation-gain hike, I did not set an alarm. I just woke up about 14 hours later at 10 am and headed off to explore some surrounding areas before making my way to Cold Springs Campground for the evening.
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June 2015
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