EISPIRATEN

Did a solo hike to Mount St. Helens today. My first time standing at the edge of a volcano. Here are a few shots, full report here:


Mount St. Helens sign, check out the Boom!


Mount Hood from the Ptarmigan Trail


Looking back down Monitor Ridge


Seismic monitoring station


Crater, Lava Dome, Spirit Lake and Mount Rainier in the distance


Mount St. Helens summit, most people stopped at a lower point on the rim, the post-eruption summit takes extra effort to traverse down and up the rim to the left


Melting cornice, Mount Adams in the distance


Selfie, crater, Rainier

Awesome, that's high up on my to-do list, have always been fascinated with St Helens... great pics too

How far in advance did you have to get your permit? I tried to do this a few years ago and all the permits were gone. They suggested I pay $190 to have a guide take me up…not happening.

JerryN wrote: ↑How far in advance did you have to get your permit? I tried to do this a few years ago and all the permits were gone. They suggested I pay $190 to have a guide take me up…not happening.

Permits for summer went on sale in February and that's when I bought mine:
http://mshinstitute.org/index.php/climb ... n_a_permit

There is a web site where you can buy and sell permits after the fact if you are looking for a particular day:
http://purmit.com/

I don't see any reason for a guide. The main summer route is Monitor Ridge and is well marked and easy to follow. In the winter, there would be avalanche and crevasse danger, but route finding would not be a problem.

thanks for the info. I agree there is no reason for a guide on that hike.

Nice pictures

Good adventure teke. Nice bit of gain in a short distance on that route. Looks like you had perfect conditions. How cool was it up top?

Rico,

It was a fair amount of gain. Comparable to Baldy from Manker Flat, but somewhat harder because of the long stretch of boulder scrambling in the middle.

Temps were in the low 40s on top but the wind was 15-20 mph above 7500'. I wanted face protection up top for the blowing ash as much as the cold. I could not have asked for better weather. Perfect. I've been really lucky this year with weather.

That was an excellent report Tekewin, with some great pictures. The traverse over to the summit looked hairy, but I'm sure it was well worth the effort.
Its amazing how much of the mountain side was blown out by that eruption. I saw it from the air once, but being there on the ground must really bring home the enormity of it.
Cheers

Phil

This link changed on blogspot and broke all the photos. The forum would not let me edit the original post. Here is the updated link:

http://ironhiker.blogspot.com/2014/08/m ... ns-wa.html

tekewin wrote: This link changed on blogspot and broke all the photos.

I fixed the original link. Are other reports here affected? Or is this problem isolated to your Mt. Saint Helen's report?

Sean,

Not sure. The problem was on blogger not eispiraten. Some of the links changed when they made https the default. I've been trying to clean up broken links where I find them. If I find more, I'll let you know.