Last summer, we attempted to climb Mount St. Helens with friends Tim, Laura, Jesse, and Sarah. But it happened to be the only stormy day of the month, and we turned around in the boulder field, vowing to try again next year. (You have to buy permits well in advance, so you can't just go back and do it the next weekend)
The very wet crew deciding to call this our summit for the day:
This year was predicted to be a hot one, so we told the Goodfellows that we would go as early as they were willing to get up.
Calculating civil twilight and the time it would take us to get through the woods and to the start of the difficult scrambling up the boulder ridge, we decided to hit the trail at 3:30 am - that meant a 2:15 am wakeup for me!
Full of dinner and packed and ready for our climb, we all went to bed super early and hoped to get some sleep before our middle-of-the-night alarms.
We timed it perfectly, with the sun just starting to show as we neared the tree line. Mount Adams:
Do we look like we woke up at 2:15 am?!?! HA!
After many hours of hiking, scrambling up boulders, and slogging through scree, we made it to the crater rim!
A nice wind kept the temps from becoming intolerable. But we could feel it getting hotter and hotter, and we were so glad to have made it up and down to the trees before the heat hit!
Mount Adams:
Only three groups left the trailhead before we did (closer to midnight), so we basically had the mountain to ourselves on the way up! And the summit, which is usually full of climbers, wasn't very crowded - a treat!
What a great day with friends - doing something so hard and so rewarding!
Who wants to go next year??
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