Mt. St. Helens from Butte Camp
Posted: August 9th, 2013, 10:11 am
In the long–ago time, when the beautiful cone of St. Helens was 1,300 feet more prominent than it is today, and when many a Portland Hiker had yet to toddle along their first trail, those seeking the mountain’s highest point would camp out beneath two buttes on its south side. The camp became Butte Camp, strictly speaking Lower Butte Camp, and the pair of buttes became Butte Camp Dome.
A friend from out of state had convinced me that it would be worth going up the mountain again for his sake (I’ve avoided it because of the crowds), and I duly purchased my permit way back when. The friend bailed out because something came up at his work and I was left to devise my own plan. There have been a gazillion reports on the two established routes: the winter ascent from June Lake and the summer plod via Monitor Ridge. A third, and yes officially sanctioned though not publicized way, is up the old ascent ridge west of Monitor.
I did the mini-pack in to Lower Butte Camp, a lush parkland bench below the buttes and fed by a gushing spring that runs all summer through thickets of Sitka alder and a meadow of false hellebore, monkey flower, lupine, and linanthus. Cascades frogs burped where I filled up with water and the trail itself becomes a conduit for the flow. After about 300 yards, however, this bounty of fresh water disappears into the lava substrate leaving the slopes below bereft of any indication of its presence.
I rose at dawn the next morning, after a night of solitude on my lovely bench, and hiked up the Butte Camp Trail to the Loowit. A few hundred yards to my right was the lava ridge that I needed to follow. I cut across rocky draws still blooming with buckwheat and heather and began the scramble up the ridge. Of the 100 permit holders that day, 99 would be going the other way.
The ridge itself is not exceptionally difficult, just slow, with many loose lava boulders. Unlike regular routes on Hood, Adams, or Monitor Ridge, there was no boot path to follow, so I picked my way carefully. At about 7,000 feet, I saw that some elk had attempted a summit before me. A couple hundred feet higher, an ambitious coyote had trotted up a snowfield. The snow tongues are the remains of the Dryer Glacier (named after Thomas Dryer, Oregonian editor, and leader of the first ascent in 1853). I slapped on microspikes (Crampons would have been better since the spikes didn't hold well on steeper sections) and made better time plodding up all the snow I could find. Being farther west than Monitor, and around the corner so to speak, this route was mercifully shaded for the lower part of the ascent on a hot day. I ran out of snow and hit ash and cinder. There was just a hundred feet or so of this, though, and I popped up at the rim!
I was about 50 yards east of the true summit and about a quarter of a mile from the Monitor route. Visibility was much better than I had expected and I took in the expansive views from the cairn at the 8,365-foot “peak”. After this, I negotiated the jagged rim to the Monitor route, where I greeted a man and his young son, the only two other hikers up there (so far).
I descended via Monitor Ridge, acknowledging probably 90+ sweaty scramblers slowly making their way up in slow, colorful clumps. Marmots, ravens, vultures, and ground squirrels were also out and about. Once at the Loowit, I headed west, crossing two lava flows radiating midday heat before making the four trail miles back to camp.
Note on nomenclature: Mt. St. Helens is the female mountain in the area. Native Americans called her Loowit, once a fair maiden who won the love of two young rival gods (and siblings), Pahto (Mt. Adams) and Wy’east (Mt. Hood). The ensuing brawl created major destruction, and in punishment, the chief of the gods fashioned volcanoes out of all three. Ironically, then, the mountain’s English name comes from a man, the 1st Baron St. Helens, Alleyne Fitzherbert, a British diplomat and friend of George Vancouver’s. He never saw his mountain.
A friend from out of state had convinced me that it would be worth going up the mountain again for his sake (I’ve avoided it because of the crowds), and I duly purchased my permit way back when. The friend bailed out because something came up at his work and I was left to devise my own plan. There have been a gazillion reports on the two established routes: the winter ascent from June Lake and the summer plod via Monitor Ridge. A third, and yes officially sanctioned though not publicized way, is up the old ascent ridge west of Monitor.
I did the mini-pack in to Lower Butte Camp, a lush parkland bench below the buttes and fed by a gushing spring that runs all summer through thickets of Sitka alder and a meadow of false hellebore, monkey flower, lupine, and linanthus. Cascades frogs burped where I filled up with water and the trail itself becomes a conduit for the flow. After about 300 yards, however, this bounty of fresh water disappears into the lava substrate leaving the slopes below bereft of any indication of its presence.
I rose at dawn the next morning, after a night of solitude on my lovely bench, and hiked up the Butte Camp Trail to the Loowit. A few hundred yards to my right was the lava ridge that I needed to follow. I cut across rocky draws still blooming with buckwheat and heather and began the scramble up the ridge. Of the 100 permit holders that day, 99 would be going the other way.
The ridge itself is not exceptionally difficult, just slow, with many loose lava boulders. Unlike regular routes on Hood, Adams, or Monitor Ridge, there was no boot path to follow, so I picked my way carefully. At about 7,000 feet, I saw that some elk had attempted a summit before me. A couple hundred feet higher, an ambitious coyote had trotted up a snowfield. The snow tongues are the remains of the Dryer Glacier (named after Thomas Dryer, Oregonian editor, and leader of the first ascent in 1853). I slapped on microspikes (Crampons would have been better since the spikes didn't hold well on steeper sections) and made better time plodding up all the snow I could find. Being farther west than Monitor, and around the corner so to speak, this route was mercifully shaded for the lower part of the ascent on a hot day. I ran out of snow and hit ash and cinder. There was just a hundred feet or so of this, though, and I popped up at the rim!
I was about 50 yards east of the true summit and about a quarter of a mile from the Monitor route. Visibility was much better than I had expected and I took in the expansive views from the cairn at the 8,365-foot “peak”. After this, I negotiated the jagged rim to the Monitor route, where I greeted a man and his young son, the only two other hikers up there (so far).
I descended via Monitor Ridge, acknowledging probably 90+ sweaty scramblers slowly making their way up in slow, colorful clumps. Marmots, ravens, vultures, and ground squirrels were also out and about. Once at the Loowit, I headed west, crossing two lava flows radiating midday heat before making the four trail miles back to camp.
Note on nomenclature: Mt. St. Helens is the female mountain in the area. Native Americans called her Loowit, once a fair maiden who won the love of two young rival gods (and siblings), Pahto (Mt. Adams) and Wy’east (Mt. Hood). The ensuing brawl created major destruction, and in punishment, the chief of the gods fashioned volcanoes out of all three. Ironically, then, the mountain’s English name comes from a man, the 1st Baron St. Helens, Alleyne Fitzherbert, a British diplomat and friend of George Vancouver’s. He never saw his mountain.