Mount St. Helens Trip

Okay - first off these photos are horribly out of order and I can't figure out how to change that now that they are posted here! Yesterday we took the day off of work to go and climb Mount St. Helens with our friends Amy, Josh, Shana & Tom. We met at Shana & Tom's house at 6a.m. for an early start and were on the trail by 8 a.m. The weather was perfect - we hiked in shorts & t-shirts all the way up to the top and only put our pants on for sliding down in the snow. There was a lot of haze in the air which made the view crummy - but that wasn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. We made it up the mountain in 4 hrs 15 min and our total trip time was about 7.5 hours - we were pretty surprised with how quickly we did it! None of us thought we'd be home before dark, and instead we were eating burgers back in Portland around 5:30. Enjoy the pictures!

If you want to see additional pictures of the hike you can check out Amy's pictures in her Kodak Gallery.

This shot was taken on our way up -- it's looking back down one of the snow fields we were hiking up.


Here we are just starting out on the trail from the parking lot. We pretty much hiked in snow the entire way.


This is just as we were about to come out of the trees on our way up.

Another shot down the snow fields.


Thor, Tom & Shana in the parking lot BEFORE we started the hike (I told you these were way out of order!)

Shana at the top!


Thor & I at the top!


This is my favorite picture from the climb - I'm in the front and Josh is right behind me in the blue shirt. This is right before we get to the top. Thor is taking the picture from the edge of the crater.

Thor eating a PB&J at a rest point along the hike up. His legs don't look sunburnt yet - but the poor little guy forgot to put sunscreen on his legs so they're cookered!


A shot of us hiking up.


Here's a shot of all six of us when we got back to the parking lot at the end of the day. From the left it's Josh, Amy, Shana, Tom, myself & Thor.


Thor & I with our 'glissading' skirts on. We zipped our rain coats around our mid-sections so we wouldn't get so wet sliding down. We had a blast!


A random shot of people at the top - you can really see how hazy the view was in this picture.


Here are Amy & Josh sitting at the top.


A shot over the edge of the crater.