After getting home at 11:30 pm from my sunset hike last night, I was back outside at 6:30 am this morning ready for another adventure! I met up with my friend Sherree and her friend, MJ (now my friend too!). We decided to hike up to Ape Canyon near Mt. St. Helens because neither had gone there before and I had been up there recently. Last time I did this hike I couldn't see Mt. St. Helens (which was right there in front of me) because of the clouds. This time we were blessed and saw the mountain... most of it anyway.
We hiked up the trail and had lunch at the junction of the Ape Canyon Trail and the Loowit Trail (our turnaround point). After lunch we decided to go explore a little further north on the Loowit Trail to see the Plains of Abraham (a pumice flatland) where evidence of the 1980 eruption is everywhere. Pyroclastic rocks dot the area and there is very little vegetation. Blasted trees are still lying on a hillside. I felt like I was on a different planet... so silent and strange. I definitely want to go explore this area more. In fact, one on my many goals is to hike the Loowit Trail all the way around the base of Mt. St. Helens. Next month I will be hiking into the blast zone with the Mt. St. Helens Institute. Can't wait!
Today we hiked 11.66 miles and had a total of 3,374 feet of elevation gain.
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| Eggs from an Irish-Colorado potato beetle |
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| Ape Canyon |
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| Pyroclastic “bombs” dot the surface |
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| a couple large cairns lead the way |
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| skeletons of blasted trees |
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| Ape Canyon |
2019 Hike 26/52
11.66 miles
