Locker Rooms | What Do You Need?
Achievement #1 | Cassidy Monforte
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Cassidy Monforte:
Mt. St. Helens Climber!
2. We hit the trail a few hours before daylight, so for the first several miles our only view was the stars…
3. …and the incredibly dense forest, eerie but beautiful in our headlamps.
4. We broke above the tree line right as the horizon was starting to get lighter.
7. As we climbed the last bit of real trail before the bouldering started, we got to watch the sun rise over the Cascades, with Mount Adams to the southeast and Mount Hood due south.
8. About halfway up the first of a few boulder fields, we caught our first view of the summit, gorgeous in the morning light but impossibly far away.
9. The terrain higher on the mountain felt like another planet – jagged volcanic rock in massive formations. The view of Mount Hood in the distance, just outside Portland, helped give a sense of scale.
10. And it was sharp – breaks were difficult to take when the rock was so jagged, so we mostly just leaned for a few minutes here and there and then moved on.
11. Due to high (35-40mph) winds I got very few photos in the final stretches before the summit, and it’s tough to even represent steepness in a photo, but it was basically a vertical wall of snow to walk up. We were exhausted from all the bouldering and this was very slow going – taking a few steps, pausing, taking a few more, until we made it up.
12. Despite the exhaustion, and the wind making it difficult to take photos, the view from the crater rim was an incredible payoff. It’s hard to see in the photos, but the volcano is very much still active and the crater is filled with steam vents – and the dome in the middle has been gradually forming since the eruption in 1980. Seeing the earth changing in real time is a humbling and beautiful experience. In the distance just past the bottom of the crater, you can see the area where I was hiking on my honeymoon last year when I first saw the mountain up close.
13. Couldn’t resist a summit selfie, despite the wind-burn. We could only stay for a few minutes since it’s such an exposed spot.
14. And a lovely couple we reached the top with was able to capture my partner and I – while I’d initially planned to climb alone, I ended up being incredibly grateful that we got to share the experience.
15. And one final pano from the top, with Mount Rainier in the background. Given the variability of October weather in the Pacific Northwest, a day with views like this was incredibly fortunate and while we couldn’t linger long to take it in, studying the photos after has been fun.
