I climbed Mt. Saint Helen's today! 8-3-10

Today I climbed Mt. Saint Helen's with my friend Angela. We had such a blast and I'm so glad she asked me to do this with her. This was going to be my 3rd time climbing it and so I told her that I wanted to make this time a "competitive climb". And she was all for it!
Here we are starting out.



We took a before picture of us smiling to see if we would still be smiling like this when we got back down?!



Once you get out of the trees its a straight up climb on these huge rocks. And there is no trail. If you look really close you'll see poles along the ridge of the rocks and you use those as a guide line and just make your own path. This part is very hard.

But we were still smiling!


The view is amazing and we were only halfway up....




After climbing .....


And climbing!


You get to the last stretch before the summit. THE ASH! You can see the top and it really doesn't look that far away but at this point you still have about another hour to go. We both agreed this was the hardest part! Your already so tired from climbing the boulders and now you have to trek up this ash and for every two steps you take one back....VERY TIRING!?



But we were still smiling!


The view is breath taking at this point and we still aren't even to the top!

Here's a shot someone took of us that shows a little more of the angle we had to
climb up!



We walked on a patch of snow for a little bit. There seemed to be less sliding that way if we really dug our shoes in.



Then we really started to get excited because we were almost to the top!


By this point we were singing the "rocky" theme song :)


WE DID IT!!!!


WE CONQUERED THE MOUNTAIN!


And we were STILL SMILING!!


And who wouldn't be with a view like this!




Do you see the steam behind my shoulder coming up? That's the "active" volcano still steaming 30 years later after it blew.


Can you hear me now!? Just checking to see if I got a signal :)



Im not for sure the exact time I've climbed it in the past but I think it was around 4 1/2 hours to get to the top. This time we ROCKED IT...(no pun intended)! We climbed to the top in 3 hrs. and 15 min. AMAZING!? We were passing people left and right.....all "guys" I have to add and we even passed up a boy scout troop. Angela was a great partner to climb with and I don't think I would of made it to the top faster with anyone else. We barley took any breaks along the way and this climb is KILLER! Straight up for 5 miles! (This part is straight from the web site)The climb gains 4,500 feet in five miles to the crater rim at 8,365 feet elevation. Although strenuous, this non-technical climb is suitable for people in good physical condition who are comfortable scrambling on steep, rugged terrain. Most climbers complete the round trip in seven to twelve hours. HA...we did the whole thing in 6 hours and 15 min.!

We stayed up at the top for an hour resting and eating some lunch. Then we were re-fueled for the trek back down.


Going down would seem to be a lot faster/eaiser, but that is not the case on this mountian! It really wares on your knee's because it's so steep and our legs were shaking trying to get back down the boulders.
There were some people trying to walk down on the snow with their ski poles but we saw them slipping everywhere so we decided to stay on the ash path. This caused alot of rocks to get into our shoes making it that much harder to get down.



(Not too many pictures of the journey back down?!)

But 24,067 steps later and after burning 1,760 calories we made it back down to the bottom
And believe it or not we were still smiling!





I couldn't wait to drink my ice cold pepsi that was waiting for me in my cooler in the trunk! AWWWWWWWW!


And to get home to see my family!


Thanks again Angela for asking me to go on this journey with you! We really
kicked some "Ash" on this mountain!! :) I had so much fun and I'd be your hiking buddy anyday! Can't wait for next summer when we beat our time up the Mountain AGAIN!