One of my favorite areas to hike is the network of trails out of the Blue Lake trailhead on the west side of Mt. St. Helens. There’s interesting terrain, nice views, and almost no people. I’ve been planning hikes into the blast zone and up along Castle Ridge from the Blue Lake trailhead. I’ve also been up on the Loowit trail a few times and get a kick out of the one gully where you have to scramble in and out using ropes. When I was there last year, I gazed down toward Blue Lake wondering what the gully would be like below the crossing. Well, today I decided to find out. The goal was to find my way into the gully from the trailhead and follow it up to the rope crossing. At that point, I would pickup the Loowit trail and work my way to the Toutle crossing to see what it looked like and then head back to Blue Lake.
This morning I dropped my wife and daughter at the airport at 0650 for her trip to New Brunswick for her first year of college. I then headed for the mountain. I arrived at the trailhead at 0830. There were 4 cars at the trailhead including mine and the one that followed me in. It was 48 degrees, sunny, absolutely no wind, no bugs. Gorgeous.
At note on the roads … FR81 from SR 503 past Merrill Lake isn’t in the greatest of shape. There is some subsidence in places on the downhill side of the road, especially on curves. There are a couple pretty large potholes. The rough spots are particularly difficult to spot in the late afternoon when the sun shines on them. Even worse, given that this was a Saturday, there were a few yahoos doing 40+ mph driving down the center of the road, even on blind curves. Once you’re past the lake, the paved road is actually pretty nice. The gravel road to the trailhead has some rough spots but nothing that can’t be navigated. There was a Prius and a Cadillac sedan at the trailhead when I left.
The Blue Lake trailhead has been torn up by repeated floods, largely coming from the gully that I was targeting. It feels like a site for an apocalyptic movie.
I started by heading up the most obvious streambed but quickly ran into obstacles, mostly trees and logs. I quickly grew tired of climbing up and around them so I decided to catch the Blue Horse trail knowing that there is a side trail from it that enters the flood plain. I thought I could cut across the flood plain to the gully, figuring that I would find a way down. A nice idea but I very quickly lost the trail, although oddly I was paralleling it according to the Gaia app. I ended up bushwacking for maybe half a mile until I bisected the trail. After perhaps another half mile I ended up back in the flood plain which was like a maze. The trail was virtually unmarked, a few cairns and occasional tape. I crisscrossed the area trying to find the right gully. I just couldn’t find my way to it. Plus, it wasn’t much fun climbing up and down mounds of rock and sand. Before the hike, I spent quite a bit of time on Google Earth and looking at other satellite photos but there are far more small trees in the area than the photos suggest and, of course, everything looks much different at ground level than from the bird’s eye. I eventually found my way into a streambed that the maps said would connect to the gully that I was looking for. The maps are right but the connection leaves you at the top of a 40-50’ cliff dropping into the gully. Well crap, what next? I decided to head downhill a bit looking for a way to scramble down into it. I kept thinking “if only I had 100’ of rope and a harness” but that would only have encouraged me to do something stupid. I don’t ever want to trigger my PLB so stupid was not in the plan for the day. After maybe a couple of hundred yards, I found a spot where a fallen tree had carved a channel across the side of gully that ended at a shelf that would take me to the bottom. Golden. Down I went.
I’m not aware of a name but I’m calling it Debris Gully. It wasn’t terribly challenging to follow. The bottom was a mix of soft sand, some of it pretty wet as if there had been standing water there recently, loose rock, some pretty large boulders, and the occasional tree. It was a slow trudge but there weren’t any real difficulties.
After a bit, I found the gully crossing. For anyone planning on taking the Loowit trail through here, the SE crossing has been moved. The previous crossing was badly undercut by runoff making it impossible to reach where the rope would have been. The new one is a good bit steeper but at least you can reach it. The NW side, which is the one I wanted, seems a little longer than I last remember.
- NW side
- SE side
It was an easy climb up and I was on the Loowit trail. From this point, the hike was very straight forward. I took a break at on the bluff overlooking the Toutle crossing. It was time to enjoy a sandwich and a beer.
The trail bed for the Loowit and Toutle trails was in very good shape. I did not encounter any downed logs until I was heading down Crescent Ridge to the Toutle crossing. They were generally easy to go over or around. One had been turned into a log tunnel.
There are a couple of water crossing on this route. Between the Toutle crossing and the Sheep Canyon bridge, there is one crossing over a couple of rounds places strategically in the creek. There are several muddy sections of the trail. The creek crossing at Blue Lake is a set of planks connecting some logs and rocks. No problem.
- Heading to Sheep Canyon
- At Blue Lake
I encountered 5 hikers, I think doing the Loowit trail loop, and one mountain biker. There were few wildflowers. Bear grass must have been amazing at timberline because every meadow was packed with stems. There was plenty of animal sign when I was bush wacking, scat from deer, elk, and bear, but I only saw a couple of mountain goats basking in the sun across the canyon from the big rock at the top of Crescent Ridge. Sadly I only had my iPhone with me so the photos aren't worth anything. Oh and a huge toad on the Toutle trail when I was heading back to Blue Lake as well as the bones from the front leg of a deer.
I can resolve one question or "mystery" in previous trip reports about a curious image on the cut facings of logs along the Toutle trail.
The lighter "X" is from branches. They are easily identified if you look at the trunk. You can see where the branches protruded from the sides.