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 climbing mount st. helens - south side route june 23, 2001 (summit) and june 9, 2001 (attempt) sorry, but this page will load very slowly on dial-up!
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click photo to enlarge Sign welcoming visitors to the National Monument. click photo to enlarge  A beautiful view of the South face of St. Helens. click photo to enlarge  The summit appears on the Monitor Ridge climb route. click photo to enlarge  A small crevasse in a snowfield at 7,500 feet. click photo to enlarge  Matt on the summit with Spirit Lake and Mount Rainier in the background. click photo to enlarge  Matt waves with his ice axe while walking along the corniced crater rim. click photo to enlarge  Spirit Lake and Mount Rainier from the summit. click photo to enlarge  A rockslide lets loose inside the St. Helens crater. click photo to enlarge  Matt at the Climber's Bivouac on June 8. click photo to enlarge  Bill climbing the Monitor Ridge snowfield on June 9. click photo to enlarge  Bill and the Monitor Ridge station are obscured by heavy fog on June 9. |
Story Contents: 1. Prologue - My Favorite Mountain 2. Jack's Restaurant and Store 3. The Climber's Bivouac 4. From Trailhead to Timberline 5. The Great Rock Scramble 6. Slogging up Monitor Ridge 7. The Upper Mountain 8. Reaching the Crater Rim 9. What an Awesome Sight 10. Photos and Phone Calls 11. The Expensive Descent 12. Extra - The June 9th Attempt View the climbing route! Prologue - My Favorite Mountain: Why am I so fascinated with Mount St. Helens? I'm not totally sure, but - despite it's squatty size and not-so-remote location - it is far and away my favorite mountain in the world. I think it all started with the huge volcanic eruption back on May 18, 1980. As a young and impressionable 10-year-old watching this event on TV in Ohio, I was amazed that the U.S. even had volcanoes, much less ones that erupted! I couldn't really fathom the devastation that leveled untold acres of trees and killed 57 people, and I didn't really know much about the Pacific Northwest. However, something burned into me in 1980 that has stayed with me until this day. When I first saw the mountain in person on July 15, 2000, I was awestruck. When I first got into mountaineering, I promised myself that I would pick the best day possible to climb Mount St. Helens. That way, I could see the volcanic moonscape first hand from a viewpoint only planes and climbers get. The view would be special, I told myself. How true that statement would be... -- Top of Page -- Jack's Restaurant and Store: Since the Forest Service re-opened the mountain for climbing in 1987, there has been a limit of 100 climbers per day above 4,800 feet (from May 15 until October 31). 50 of these permits are reserved in advance and 50 are provided either by lottery or on a first-come, first-serve basis at Jack's Restaurant and Store in nearby Cougar, Washington. Sometimes there are plenty of permits remaining by the 5:30 pm lottery time, but sometimes that is not the case. I got out of Portland a little late on Friday the 22nd, so I arrived at Jack's around 6:00 to see a line of climbers nearly out the door of the place! Not a good sign. I found out that there were 15 lottery tickets distributed and that I was the first of the "first-come" people in line. Some simple math told me that if all 15 people purchased the maximum 4 passes per ticket, I would be headed home a disappointed man. However, I decided to wait it out and take my chances. Nearly an hour passed before I got near the head of the line and there were very few permits left. Fortunately, I received the 97th permit for that day and would be able to climb on Saturday! With that, I sat down to a big "country" meal of chicken strips and a baked potato before headed off to the mountain. (You see, no right-minded climber can leave Jack's without a permit AND a meal.) -- Top of Page -- The Climber's Bivouac: The road to St. Helens is a paved one until the final few miles. My Oldsmobile Alero seemed up to the test and made it up the mountain without too much of a problem. As I arrive at the Climber's Bivouac (camping area), I parked and prepared my gear for the next day's climb. Unlike most of the other climbers, I did not bring a tent and sleeping bag - choosing instead to "bivouac" in the back seat of my car. That was a mistake which I will not make again! Sleeping on bucket seats in 40 degree temperatures was not a pleasant experience and I did not really sleep more than an hour or two. Whatever sleep I got wasn't very good anyway. Finally, at 4:00 am, I got up and began assembling my climbing gear under increasingly clearer skies! This, I told myself, was going to be a great day to be and I was the first one out of the camp. The mountain was all mine. -- Top of Page -- From Trailhead to Timberline: The route to the alpine area of the mountain is innocuous enough. If you did not know you were on a volcano, there is no way you'd discern that from the trail. From the Bivouac at 3,780 feet, the trail winds gently uphill through a thick old-growth forest. Except for an occasional viewpoint of the surrounding countryside, the hike was no different than one on the lower parts of Saddle Mountain or Dog Mountain. After about 2 miles and a little under one hour, I reached timberline at 4,800 feet. The landscape would now change dramatically and, along with it, the type of climb. -- Top of Page -- The Great Rock Scramble: Just past the tree line, the hike ends and the climb up Monitor Ridge truly begins. The ridge is a blocky lava flow left over from an ancient eruption of the volcano - and it's a pain to navigate. It is a true "rock scramble" where you're footing on the rocks can be solid at one moment and treacherous the next. With ski poles in hand and stalwart concentration, it seemed to take forever to ascend the lower portion of the ridge. It took 30 minutes just to go several hundred vertical feet, which really bummed me out since I had been going more than 1,000 vertical feet per hour up to that point. Luckily, there was still a decent amount of snow on the mountain in late June, so found the beginning of a the snow field at 5,200 feet and set off on the long slog up to the summit. -- Top of Page -- Slogging up Monitor Ridge: Since Mount St. Helens can be "hiked" using the rocky ridge, many climbers do not need technical gear such as an ice axe and mountaineering boots. However, the rock scramble takes more time and energy than a snow climb, so I chose the latter. The snow on the lower portion of the mountain was soft enough to avoid the use of crampons, so I found a great set of steps (existing footprints) and tried to make up for lost time. Stopping only twice for 5 minute breaks, I hauled up the mountain at a very good pace (for me) and more than made up the time lost to the rock scramble. By the time I reached the monitoring station at 6,900 feet, I had covered the 3,200 feet of elevation gain in under 3 hours! There was only 1,400 feet to go and I knew I could make the summit in about 4 hours without a problem. At least I thought so. -- Top of Page -- The Upper Mountain: My pace continued to be strong, and I was going to make the summit well under my goal, when the snow suddenly turned icy. There I was, on the steepest portion of the climb and I my ice axe and crampons were in my pack! The great steps that I had been following disappeared into a glissade chute and I couldn't kick new ones very well due to the ice. I truly was concerned that, with one misstep, I could be flying down the slope out of control and possibly injure myself. After some contemplation, I decided to kick new steps - no matter how long it took to do so. After about 20 feet of stressful climbing, I rediscovered the steps and the crisis was averted. From here, the summit was in sight and I was going to make it after all. (My apologies to Mary Tyler Moore for that comment.) -- Top of Page -- Reaching the Crater Rim: Almost exactly 4 hours after I had hit the trailhead, I reached the summit of the mountain at 9:15 am. As I took my final steps, the crater rim opened wide in front of me and the majestic Mount Rainier - the tallest peak in the Pacific Northwest - appeared in the horizon! Though the "true summit" was still 1/2 miles away, I decided that this was a better vantage point and 8,270 feet was good enough for me. All that was left was a short traverse over to the prime viewing point and my ascent was complete. -- Top of Page -- What an Awesome Sight: During the entire South Side climb , the crater rim just looks like a jagged line in the sky. However, when you reach it in person, the view is unbelievable! Immediately in front of you is the 1,000 foot lava dome inside the eruption-ravaged crater. Farther to the North-Northeast is the logged-choked Spirit Lake , and in the horizon is Mount Rainier, the East Crater Wall and Mount Adams ! I could have spent all day up there had it not been about 35 degrees. -- Top of Page -- Photos and Phone Calls: I managed to make a cell phone call to my Mom and a co-worker. After that, the real business began...taking photos. I snapped as many cool pictures as I could in order to document the fruit of my labor and add to this website. Luckily, another solo climber - a Seattle-based consultant named Doug Pierson - reached the summit at this time and he was nice enough to take my "hero shot" on the summit. In fact, four of his great photos are displayed on this site! After about 45 minutes of taking in the scenery and chatting with Doug (who ironically had also spent some time in Ohio), it was time to go. I patted myself on the back and loaded up for the descent. Just before beginning my decent, Doug snapped a great shot of me waving my ice axe while walking along the crater rim. -- Top of Page -- The Expensive Descent: Normally, glissading (sliding down the mountain on your butt using slick pants or shorts) is a time-saving and fun practice. However, this day would add another adjective - expensive. I had ruined a pair of snow pants once before by glissading on St. Helens, so I brought a pair of slick shorts and a pair of pants similar to the ruined ones. Little did I know that this would not be enough. I tried glissading from the summit and immediately ripped the shorts to shreds on the icy surface of the snow field. Upon further inspection, my climbing shorts were also ripped up, so that was about $60 right there! I then dawned my snow pants - a $40 value at the Nike store - and proceeded to glissade the remainder of the way down the mountain. By the time I reached the 5,200 foot mark and the end of the snow, the snow pants were ripped apart and I had to cut them off of me! Despite the $100 of deceased apparel, the trip was well worth the effort and provided me with lasting images of the incredible volcanic landscape around Mount St. Helens. I conquered my favorite mountain that day, but I'll be back for more next year! -- Top of Page -- Extra - The June 9th Attempt: Some of the photos above are from my first attempt at climbing Mount St. Helens on June 9, 2001. My friend Bill Bayer and I chose a date where the weather was unsettled, but we were hopeful that things would clear up. After getting our permits and camping outside in an overnight rainstorm, we awoke to what seemed to be clearing skies. With that, we started up the mountain. Everything was fine until we reached the 6,000 foot mark and the clouds rolled in with a thick fog. The visibility went down to about 100 feet and the winds increased measurably. By the time we reached the monitoring station at 6,900, the conditions were getting pretty bad. We trudged on, but by 7,700 feet, the temperatures were low and the wind was very strong. Fears of frostbite and the fact that we weren't going to see anything anyway turned us around. Other climbers did not do the same, but we felt better that we weren't risking our health - or worse, our lives - just to reach a summit that "will be there tomorrow". -- Top of Page -- |
click photo to enlarge Swift Reservoir lies to the South of the mountain. click photo to enlarge  The blocky lava flow rocks of Monitor Ridge. click photo to enlarge  Mount Hood and the Monitor Ridge monitoring station. click photo to enlarge  The "true" summit of the mountain at 8,365 feet. click photo to enlarge  The lava dome inside the eruption crater as seen from the mountain summit. click photo to enlarge  Fellow climber Doug Pierson on the summit with Mount Adams in the distance. click photo to enlarge  12,276-foot Mount Adams hovers over the clouds. click photo to enlarge  A 4-photo mosaic looking East from the summit. click photo to enlarge  Monitor Ridge as seen on the June 9 climb. click photo to enlarge  Matt takes a break during the June 9 climb attempt. click photo to enlarge  A climbing party makes their way up Monitor Ridge in heavy fog on June 9. |