Mount St. Helens

A first glimpse of Mount St. Helens on the drive to Cougar

It's been a while since I've written here, but that's mainly because I haven't had any major adventures to write about. Of course I've had lots of little fun adventures but in my mind this blog is about the big stuff. The little day to day stuff goes on facebook.

Right now I'm sitting at the Lone Fir Resort in Cougar, Washington. There's probably not much else to do in Cougar rather than hang out at the Lone Fir Resort or maybe go down to the river. Luckily the resort has wifi so I can stay in touch with the world.

So this latest adventure I'm sharing with my Dad. He drove over from Idaho yesterday so that we could spend a couple days exploring Mt. St. Helens. Today we'll check out the Ape Cave which is a 13,000 foot long lava tube. We have our headlamps for this journey since we'll be underground for just over a mile. We'll make the loop through the Upper Cave which is the more difficult section - but it also has a 'light at the end of the tunnel' since it doesn't dead end like the Lower Cave. After our cave exploration we'll check out Climber's Bivouac to prepare ourselves for the big climb tomorrow.

So the main reason for our journey is to summit Mt. St. Helens. Since I got the big mountain out of the way last year when I climbed Rainier, I've decided I need to do the littler big mountains. Luckily the Volcano alert level for St. Helens has been lowered to "normal" so we don't expect to see any eruptions on our climb tomorrow. We mainly expect a difficult hike with incredible views. Of course we'll be finding some geocaches along the way as well. I haven't seen Mt. St. Helens up close since I was about 13 so I'm pretty excited to tackle the mountain tomorrow. I think my dad's excited too.

The hike is about 4.5 miles each way with about 4500' elevation gain, though the steepness may not be the toughest part. I hear the scrambling and hiking through ash near the top is what makes the climb difficult. My Dad and I opted to go for a summer climb to ensure we'd have nice weather but this also means we don't have the snow to make the climb a little easier.

We have the nice weather, so we should have a great day filled with spectacular views!