Mt. St. Helens

On Monday Jason and I hiked Mt. St. Helens.  We planned to go with a couple friends in May, and we decided we didn't have enough equipment to make the trip successful in all the snow and on the winter route.  Our church was organizing a trip in July, so we decided to try the hike with them instead. We started left the church at 3:30 in the morning, and started hiking at 6:00.

 After we hiked for about an hour in the woods(my favorite part), you reach the timberline. It then quickly goes to the huge rocks/boulders.

Then we hiked for about 2 hours up these boulders.  I was doing well, until it started to get windy.  Like 50 mile an hour wind.  So as you can see, we kept adding layers as the hike went on.

  Now we are 3 plus hours into it, getting knocked over by the wind, and we have reached the ash at the top.  People kept calling it the  "vertical beach". You are literally walking two steps forward one step back, getting pelted in the face by flying rocks/ash.  This is the point, where I wanted to turn back.  Jason kept going, so so did I.  I really could not have done this without him.

 We made it to the summit! YEAH It was an awesome feeling. I really wish it was a nicer day, so we could have seen more.

Then it took us quite some time to hike down.  It was even harder climbing down the boulders, because now my legs were tired. Once we reached the boulders, this huge cloud came in and we couldn't see the top anymore.  One of the people in our group was actually stuck up at the summit in this cloud.

It was a truly amazing experience, one that I am not ready to do tomorrow, but very glad that I did it.