Climbers: hobo and tortoise
Location: Skamania County, WA, USA
Route: Climber's Bivouac, Monitor Ridge
Summit Objectives: St. Helens
Total Time: 9.0 hours
Summit: 8365 feet
Starting Ele: 1128 meter (3700 feet)
Ele. Gain: 1372 meter (4500 feet)
Distance: 16 km (10.0 mile)
Alpine start at 4:30am
Reached treeline (2 mi) in about an hour, just before the sky began to lighten. Climb was mostly through clouds - we broke above the cloud deck at 7000 ft or so, to views of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood to the east and south. Made the crater rim with spectacular views of the crater and lava dome (smoking and smelling like sulphur!) and Mt. Rainer to the North. All surrounding terrain, including Pumice Plain was shrouded in clouds. Traversed the crater rim to the true summit (0.25 mile) just as it was enveloped in a very cold cloud at 9:40am. Had a windy, sand and ash blasted lunch on the rim before descending. We were the first party to depart, summit, and finish. Counted 77 others who were making the climb on our descent - not a bad attrition rate for 100 permits per day! Last group we passed was ascending past treeline at about 1pm... 7.5 hours after us. Very interesting. Nontechnical climb, but difficult enough to satisfy me as a wonderful way to round out the summer climbing season.
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