About a month ago a couple of friends and I set off on a 3 day trek to circumnavigate Mount St. Helens up here in Washington State. The trail is called the Loowit Trail and runs about 33 miles around the outskirts of the blast crater. It was one of the more interesting backpacking trips I have been on this year in that it goes through a variety of different zones and therefore gives you a very complete picture of the consequences of the 1980 blast on the surrounding landscape.
The trail starts at the Climbers' Bivouac where we overnighted in the parking lot and then headed out the following morning through a couple of miles of conifer forest on the Ptarmigan Trail. Once we reached the intersection with the climbers' route, the forest eventually gave way to clear evidence of the blast zone, with car-sized boulders strewn everywhere. For those interested in plants, the bear grass was insane in mid-July.
There followed a fair amount of boulder-hopping and scrambling as we searched for the pole markers to guide us across the rocks and back onto the trail. It was very misty in the early morning but we made it and from there on we descended back onto scrubby forest and finally down the south fork of the Toutle River where we camped the first night. It was about 9 miles of hiking that day.
On day two it was up early and off on the climb out of the river bed, which fortunately was fixed with a rope. Garden gloves came in hand - also for the boulders - and we were off towards the northwest side of the mountain, following the trail along the edge of the river canyon. The wildflowers were out in force, as were the rabbits, and there was evidence of deer and elk. We saw a group of elk on a far away ridge as we descended onto the pumice plain and Floating Island lava flow. We made a side trip to see Loowit Falls, then across to Windy Ridge, which is approached by a very steep section of switchbacks that snaked their way up a barren cliff. Some people hike it counterclockwise - I am glad we did it clockwise as this section would have been fairly scary going down.
Once at Windy Pass, we had amazing views over the Plains of Abraham on the other side, with Mount Adams peaking above the clouds on the far away horizon. And yes, as the name implies, it was very windy. The route down was ball-bearings but not too bad.
We were supposed to camp at near the Ape Canyon trail but in talking to other hikers we found out that the camp was almost dry and that just below the pass there was a great water source. Always talk to other people on the trail! It also turned out to an absolutely beautiful site, the best in fact on the the entire trail.
After turning in for the night - after seeing mountain goats on windy ridge, we got a good night's sleep and woke up to a sunrise to rival all sunrises. Since we had camped after only 9 miles, we had a long 13 mile last day but the weather was perfect and the views continued to impress. Once we were across the Plains, we entered into boulder fields again, interspersed with swaths of bear grass that perfumed the air brilliantly. There were several canyon crossings and a couple of small river crossings, and a lengthy boulder field before we eventually joined up with the Ptarmigan Trail again.
I am definitely doing this one again next year :).
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