Mt St Helens Adventure

Foiled again! Another year...another set of photos of me going up a volcano and nearly at the top of a volcano but not AT the top of the volcano! Oh well, it was still a great adventure and plans are already in the works for another attempt in October (this time hopefully on the shorter summer route, and after I figure out a better system for water and remembering to eat!) Mt St Helens is without question one of the most amazing places on the planet. Lifelong love of geology and inherited love of great views from high places make any day in a place like this a great one. See below for the play by play!

My friends Mike and Nicole and I left Seattle on Saturday morning to allow time for a visit to Ape Caves. You can learn all about them here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape_Cave).
Here's the first part of the lava tube ("cave"):
Then it gets a little narrower...
The lava along the sides and top of the cave...
At the end of the cave/tube, it gets even narrower...we crawled (or rather slithered snakelike) through a very small part because the people coming out said it "opens up" on the other side. Well, it opens up a little....and here we are looking a little dazed after walking almost a mile in the dark! Very cool!
Then we headed off to the aptly named Marble Mountain Snopark, as the normal summer climbing route road/trailhead was closed. The snopark still had plenty of snowdrifts around, but we found a place to camp without putting the tent in the snow! Here I am getting a pre-climb dinner of two hotdogs and mac and cheese! (and of course, smores, but they aren't pictured)

(But the snow was not far off)

Nicole and I at the trailhead...the swift river "ski" trail. We could have skied a good part of it yesterday!
Mike and Nicole heading up the trail (part of the mountain visible in the background)...
Above the treeline and below the clouds things opened up a bit...

Suncups forming in the snowfield from recent hot sun on the snowpack

Tough wildflowers are breaking through!

Into the clouds (otherwise known as Mordor)...

After a couple hours of climbing over boulders, we got high enough to start to break out of the clouds, just like taking off from Seatac (the visual effect, not the boulder climbing)!

I love volcanoes...they exactly how I imagine another planet would be...

Seriously...did we just come up from down there?? Creepy!!!

Getting closer to the top (and my turnaround point)

The rocky ridge in the background is Monitor Ridge (the normal summer route) that I climbed last year with Mike (two different Mikes...I only climb volcanoes with people named Mike)
Speaking of which, here's Mike and I close to where we turned around last year...this was about the time ice particles started blowing in our faces and blinding us, blegh. However, that was a terrific day on the volcano too, despite the awful weather!

Back to 2008...above the clouds I could watch the clouds boiling and swirling around the mountain below me, amazing! Mt Adams is tempted to come out from behind it's clouds...

Clouds starting to clear and give some glimpses of the hills and lakes below

Looking back up on the way down

Mt Adams finally decides to be sort of visible through the clouds...

During the decent it became almost completely clear below....did we REALLY come up this??
See you in October, Mt St Helens! Try to stay in one piece till then and no bad weather or early snow allowed!