Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Mt. St. Helens

This is Mt. St. Helens: (picture taken last fall)




On Monday, Matt, Nick and I climbed it. Easily one of, if not the highlight of my summer. This was my third trip to a volcano's edge -- and I think my first summit of a "glacierous peak." The pics are below...

Most of the trail was climbing/scrambling on boulders. This is looking down where we came from:
A photo-op with these two boulders was just an excuse to rest up a bit. We gained almost 5,000 ft. elevation over something like 5 or 6 miles.
Mount Adams to the East:




The final ascent was trudging through ash. Here's the last piece before the summit:
Me and Mount Adams:
Success (me, Nick, Matt):Matt and Nick having lunch on the crater's edge:
Crater edge w/ the future summit, growing from the middle of the crater since the eruption: We hiked around the rim to the highest point, on the right side of photo:
This is my favorite picture from the day, Matt on the edge of the rim w/ a sizeable drop below:The growing dome:We spent about an hour-and-a-half at the top. It was pretty windy and we got a few face-fulls of sand/ash while we chilled.