Some photos from our Mt St Helens climb back in August

[Rob]

Great day on the Mt.  Spent 5 hours on the rim.

[Greenhorn]

Great pictures, nice to see the big guy made it in the last picture!

[fillthefreezer]

do you know the mileage and ascent for that climb? ive been interested in doing it

[JLS]

Great photos, that climb is on my bucket list.

[Pathfinder101]

PathfinderJR and I did Mt Adams this last summer.  I haven't looked into St Helens.  Is the trail marked?

[Rob]

The hike is not too bad.  We started at Climbers Bivouac (3700 feet).  You start with a 1,000 foot gain through forest over ~2 miles.  pretty easy.  The more difficult part comes once you get out of the forest.  You gain about 3,500 feet in 3 miles with no real flat parts or places to rest.  Boulder fields that in places require hand over hand climbing (but nothing technical).  The "trail" if you call it that is pretty simple.  They put posts every 100 yards or so up the path with reflective tape on the top.  you walk from post to post.  That gets you to the rim.  Then you have about a quarter mile to the true summit (walking along the rim).  That is a bit tricky in places as you are side hilling the rim in really loose stuff.  a fall would slide you down 300 to 500 feet or so.  pretty much like falling on a sand dune, so you can't hurt yourself (unless you fall to the crater side in which case you die!).  We had one guy in our group who did not like heights so that was a little dicey for him.

Very doable mountain though.  even a fat guy like me who's idea of cardio is typing can do it!

Here is a map of the hike.

[Rob]

4 of us tried this last year too.  weather was horrid.  I was the only one who made the rim.  I tried for the summit but viz was so bad that I only made it half way before I turned back.  Winds were 60-70 on the rim, and it was snowing. 

here are the photos I took.  they give you a feel for exactly how it was up there.  there were places where you could not see the trail marker posts when you were in between them due to the fog - and it was still blowing 30+ on the side of the Mt.

[jackelope]

Good stuff. I did Adams in July too. We had plans to do St. Helens a couple weeks ago but bagged it do to crummy weather. Next summer we will try again.

[kentrek]

great pics,i took almost the same exact pics this summer..looks like we climbed it the same day even 

[Rob]

bagging it due to crummy Wx is a good call.  One lady who went up later in the day on the same day we went in 2011 did not come back down.  They did a search for her that evening, then had to call it off due to bad Wx.  They found her alive the next morning.  I guess she went up and tried to hit the rim solo after her group turned around and got lost.  she built a cave in the boulder field and hunkered down for a long cold night.

Looks like I lied in the initial post, I did this hike on 9/1/12, not in August like I thought I did.  it was a great day on the mountain this year!