Below, above and around the volcano

Here in the state of Washington, I observe two seasons: 1) summer in the mountains, and 2) planning next summer in the mountains. After spending the last summers walking through the Olympic Games, Wonderland Trail and Washington’s legs of the PCT & PNT, I was looking for a slightly deeper cut for my Alpina 2025 adventure. A high route full of wild flowers, wildlife and volcanic summits. Perhaps a volcanic summit enough to be reached without any special equipment, so I could keep tacilizing with the weight of my package like the patient that I am the cold I am. And perhaps a route that offers a lot of loneliness, to disconnect more completely from our moment shaded by dystopia.

I did a hasty Internet investigation and found what seemed like the perfect route. The church and friendly volcano with the ultraletic that would climb was Lowit (Mt. St. Helens), which threw about 1,300 vertical feet when it exploded in 1980. Before the eruption, this mountain was held for its elegant beauty as Mount Fuji of the United States. His cone was very soft and symmetrical because he was very young: only about 2,500 years, younger than Giza’s great pyramid. It was the geological equivalent of the bottom of a baby, pyroclastic flows and everything.

The 1980 class had to navigate some paths of trails.

Welcome to Mordor, USA.

The eruption of 1980 was one of the most powerful natural disasters ever registered in North America: it unleashed a more concentrated and destructive force than any hurricane, a force many times greater than the nuclear test of the Trinity of 1945. It is almost impossible to imagine for those of us who were not feeling the ashes that rained through the continent or we see the 230 square miles of forest flattened in minutes. The then president Jimmy Carter said that the burned and scrubbing landscape «makes the moon look like a golf course.» The most nerdier registrars who were accused of cleaning the ashtray remains compared it to walk towards Mordor.

Fifty -seven people lost their lives in the eruption. I remember hearing warning stories at school about Harry Truman (without a relationship), the owner of a shelter located directly within the «Red Zone» evacuation. While the mountain rumbled threatening, Truman rejected the supplications of the authorities to evacuate, telling journalists: «The mountain will never hurt me.» He and his lodge were buried under dozen feet of volcanic debris. But unlike Truman, almost all the victims of the eruption were actually outside the red zone, which was drawn too much because of the magnitude of the danger.

The modern rota can be achieved can be achieved by obtaining a $ 26 permit and making a deviation of 5 miles up and down on the Loowit path, which is reduced to the mountain. The opinion from the top (the weather allows) would offer a humiliating perspective on the scale of the destruction of the volcano, and about the recovery of the explosion zone in the last 45 years.

In the National Forest

After touching the summit and completing the loop, I planned to follow the trail of limits to the east to the National Forest of Gifford Pincchot. This area was named (on the other Harry Truman) after the friend Delgado de Teddy Roosevelt, who was also the first head of the United States forest service. More than a century before the layoffs of the February forest service, President William Howard Taft fired Mr. Pinchot for criticizing the dazzled conservation policies of the TAFT administration. Mr. Pinchot is remembered by those who visit this beautiful land as one of the preeminent pioneers of the United States.

My memory of section H of the PCT.

The beautiful landscape of the National Forest of Gifford Pinchot, administered since time immemorial by Cowlitz, Yakama, Nisqually and other indigenous peoples, left me speechless in each sunset during the PCT goat rock section. Those views even managed to distract me from a minor finger dislocation that I suffered while trying to wade the Cispus river too early in the season. I really wanted to explore the depths of this forest. It provides a habitat for all the stripes of Wild Life PNW, from rarely stained Wolverines to rarely prosperous stained owls. At the bottom of the forest, my route would take me to the dark division, the largest road in the west of Washington. There, about Dark Meadow, he faced Dark Mountain. This place sounded so metallic that it made Metallica sound as a baby shark. The face of the dark mountain must shine with Druidic runes under the light of a full moon. Dark Meadow crickets must greet each dusk playing Slayer riffs in their serrated wings.

This was also the land of the Sasquatch path, with many reported cryptocus sightings. «The badiest Bigfeet comes here from Canada,» another hiker told me seriously. That series of words seemed suspicious at some levels, but I always appreciate receiving another data point.

Some annoying facts will not change their minds

Continuing with my research, I learned that the dark division can be technically without a road, but my route would take me to a popular ATV path by miles. Then, together with the sounds sounds of deep forests, combustion engines would be part of my hiking soundtrack. And the dark division was not so named because it was wrapped in the legend of Eldritch: it only bears the name of a nineteenth -century search engine named Mr. John Dark. As for the Sasquatches (Sasqueetch?), I decided that if they exist, they should really enjoy their relative isolation of our human drama, and I would not like to be the one that explains the last centuries. I definitely would not want to explain the sad story of Seattle sailors, who dictates geography, sasquatches must support.

The Sir Hiss route for the southwest of Washington.

Despite these warnings, I was anxious to explore this beautiful corner of this beautiful state. I planned my trip in mid -July, which lately seems to be the optimal point in Washington: just after the mountains melt and the mosquitoes leave the buffet mode in our flesh, and just before the smoked mist season of fire threatens to close our paths. My route, in the shape of Gaia as a shy snake, would take me just over 100 miles, hitting east towards the PCT until it broke north through the paths of Juniper Ridge and Tongue Mountain. It would end in the small town of Randle, on the shores of the Cowlitz River.

Thanks to my mother and her sub -Uru for accepting to take me to the beginning of the path, and with a bear boat full of my patented mixtures of salty and sweet sludge (coastal water companions: we will exchange mud recipes), I was ready to start my alpine adventure season. See you on the other side!

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