After a great tour in South Dakota, I have whiplashed across the country to Washington where its time for some real peaks! First up, Mount St. Helen. We got an o-dark thirty start and rolled up to the Cimber’s Bivouac about 6am. This shot is from the drive up through Brian’s windscreen.
Like most climbs in these parts there was a hoard and apparently we were getting a late start.
The climb starts out rather gently through the trees and up this nice trail. The sun was just now getting into the forest
After about a mile, the trees get pretty thin and we were headed out no the rubble.
We pop out of the trees and what a view! That is Mount Hood to the south. A keen eye can make out Mount Jefferson further right down the ridge.
Monument Ridge is to the right but we are going up the ridge to the left….. FYI, that is not the summit.
To the west, Mount Adams.
Brian makes his way through the rock with the summit up above.
After a while we put on the micro crampons and hit the snow.
Mount Adams as viewed a little higher up Mount St Helens.
What a glorious day we have here. This image looking west.
Mount Hood as seen further up Mt. St. Helens.
More snow climbing.
Adams…..again.
It’s hard to judge the slope with a picture but one slip and you might take a bit of a ride.
Hood….again.
Back onto the rubble.
As we approach the summit, the slope gets pretty stark.
Brian and Tom make their way up the last grunt to the summit.
Summit! Just stunning! Mount Rainer in the distance.
Tommy and Mount Rainer.
Adams as seem from the summit of St. Helens.
Mt Rainer and Spirit Lake. The blast zone from St. Helens is below.
More blast zone.
Below you can see the new lava dome and just below us the worlds youngest glacier.
Time to descend.
I don’t have any good images of what happened next but we brought up small plastic sleds and dropped about 2000 feet on our butts.
Further down the mountain we picked up the sleds and plunge stepped thorough the rocks.
Descending on the snow is much more efficient than the rocks.
Tom and Brian taking a break waiting for me to shoot some photography.
Flowers and life trying to take hold.
One final view of Adams before we get back in the trees and finish our climb. Notice that the air was much more clear than this morning. We were back at the car about 1:30 and most of the cars were still there….. we had passed most of the climbers along the way either going up or down.
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