Hike: Harry's Ridge
10 Jul 2011 22:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nwhikerHarry's Ridge trail, in the Mt St Helen's National Monument.
Hike stats: 8.5 miles, nominal elevation gain 200ft. In other words... the end point was 200ft higher than the start point. That's net change. However, from the standpoint of boots on ground? Try closer to 1000ft, probably more.
Nutshell: one of the most fabulous hikes I've ever been on.
The weather was close to perfect, the kids were in a good mood, or at least not a bad one, and we had lunch on a bench looking at Mt St Helens. Felt like a perfect beginning to a hike, and indeed it really was.
The trail starts out on pavement, at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, but quickly goes to wide, well maintained trail for a while. It follows the contour of Johnston's Ridge (imagine that!) for about 1.5 miles before we got to a point we found out later is called Devil's Elbow.
OMG.
These two photos give a scant idea of what I'm talking about, though the 2400 ft drop isn't obvious.
A better idea would be from this video, taken by someone last week.
I did not panic, and the kids all made it fine. Before we started dh gave the kids a quick talking to: difficult, dangerous trail, be careful, watch where you put your feet, and don't look down. It was scary, and I tried to put the thought that we have to come back that way out of my mind for the rest of the hike.
Which wasn't as hard as it sounds, because the hike was glorious. It was one beautiful view after the other. After the Devil's Elbow, we turned away from the mountain. The first trail intersection, at 2.5 miles, had an option to go down to Spirit Lake or to Harry's Ridge, and we continued on that trail, crossing a few bits of snow, something I absolutely detest. We left Johnston Ridge and got the full view of Harry's Ridge above us, a slope of tiny alpine pine trees, with a bridge in the distance, a lot of elevation gain, and it was still a ways off. The whole slope to the ridge looked like... the decor from a model train, so many of the trees exactly the same age... no duh, they all started growing about the same time after the blast.
Here is the other direction:
Linnea was whiny during much of this hike, and I was a bit concerned that she really didn't have it in her.
Away we trudge. We saw avalanche lilies in that area, at lower elevation we'd seen lupine, penstemon, and indian paintbrush. We had to cross several "fingers" of snow in ditches, most of them only a few feet across, but some frighteningly undermined by water. We crossed the little bridge, here are the kids at it on the way back down.
Finally we reached the trail intersection for the Harry's Ridge trail. To the left, head over the saddle and over to some unknown small peak. To the right up to the ridge. Oh yes, up. So up we went.
First views when we crested to the ridgeline:
That is Spirit Lake down there. The grey things floating? Logs. The mountain is Mt Adams. (I will not admit to thinking it was Rainier. I realised I was wrong when we took a compass bearing on it and it was due east from the ridge. I confirmed with a map at the Visitor Center when we got back. Dh will not let me forget this.)
Did I mention we were going up the ridgeline?
When we made it to the top, the view was... spectacular. I'm not even going to attempt to describe, it's beyond my ability with words. Alas, my photos weren't as awesome.
The built up stuff is the monitoring station, powered by solar panels. GPS, radio, and a few other sensors. That poor mountain has no privacy. We could see the Johnston Observatory from the top of the ridge, and we could also see the ridge with the monitoring equipment from the parking lot we'd left so many hours earlier. I am 100% sure that if dh had said 'hey, guys, look where we're going!' that morning, we'd have had such a revolt in the ranks, we would have had to cancel the hike! Good thing he didn't say anything.
We took a break at the top, and then headed down, with Linnea, now that we were over half done, in a cheerful happy mood. I think it's a lack of confidence thing: once she knows she's done it once, on the way out, she feels better. Of course part of the issue is too many loop trails.
We saw loads of cool rocks, pumice, ash. There are some very cool geologic features that I'll try to describe in another post, but they're quite cute, cool, and conical, but not mini-volcanoes, despite what we hoped.
The way back was a bit long, but not too bad. The bit of skimpy trail over cliff was nerve wracking , but less than on the way out, and we made good time back to the Visitor Center, where there were bathrooms, yay!
It was an incredible hike, and felt like a milestone one: longer than anything we've done with the kids, not one of the kid friendly ones, and the kids -heck all of us- got to see views that most everyone who comes to visit St Helen's will not.
Anyhow. There are loads of photos at my flickr set, even two of me. Since I usually wield the camera, that's a rarity.
Hike stats: 8.5 miles, nominal elevation gain 200ft. In other words... the end point was 200ft higher than the start point. That's net change. However, from the standpoint of boots on ground? Try closer to 1000ft, probably more.
Nutshell: one of the most fabulous hikes I've ever been on.
The weather was close to perfect, the kids were in a good mood, or at least not a bad one, and we had lunch on a bench looking at Mt St Helens. Felt like a perfect beginning to a hike, and indeed it really was.
The trail starts out on pavement, at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, but quickly goes to wide, well maintained trail for a while. It follows the contour of Johnston's Ridge (imagine that!) for about 1.5 miles before we got to a point we found out later is called Devil's Elbow.
OMG.
These two photos give a scant idea of what I'm talking about, though the 2400 ft drop isn't obvious.
A better idea would be from this video, taken by someone last week.
I did not panic, and the kids all made it fine. Before we started dh gave the kids a quick talking to: difficult, dangerous trail, be careful, watch where you put your feet, and don't look down. It was scary, and I tried to put the thought that we have to come back that way out of my mind for the rest of the hike.
Which wasn't as hard as it sounds, because the hike was glorious. It was one beautiful view after the other. After the Devil's Elbow, we turned away from the mountain. The first trail intersection, at 2.5 miles, had an option to go down to Spirit Lake or to Harry's Ridge, and we continued on that trail, crossing a few bits of snow, something I absolutely detest. We left Johnston Ridge and got the full view of Harry's Ridge above us, a slope of tiny alpine pine trees, with a bridge in the distance, a lot of elevation gain, and it was still a ways off. The whole slope to the ridge looked like... the decor from a model train, so many of the trees exactly the same age... no duh, they all started growing about the same time after the blast.
Here is the other direction:
Linnea was whiny during much of this hike, and I was a bit concerned that she really didn't have it in her.
Away we trudge. We saw avalanche lilies in that area, at lower elevation we'd seen lupine, penstemon, and indian paintbrush. We had to cross several "fingers" of snow in ditches, most of them only a few feet across, but some frighteningly undermined by water. We crossed the little bridge, here are the kids at it on the way back down.
Finally we reached the trail intersection for the Harry's Ridge trail. To the left, head over the saddle and over to some unknown small peak. To the right up to the ridge. Oh yes, up. So up we went.
First views when we crested to the ridgeline:
That is Spirit Lake down there. The grey things floating? Logs. The mountain is Mt Adams. (I will not admit to thinking it was Rainier. I realised I was wrong when we took a compass bearing on it and it was due east from the ridge. I confirmed with a map at the Visitor Center when we got back. Dh will not let me forget this.)
Did I mention we were going up the ridgeline?
When we made it to the top, the view was... spectacular. I'm not even going to attempt to describe, it's beyond my ability with words. Alas, my photos weren't as awesome.
The built up stuff is the monitoring station, powered by solar panels. GPS, radio, and a few other sensors. That poor mountain has no privacy. We could see the Johnston Observatory from the top of the ridge, and we could also see the ridge with the monitoring equipment from the parking lot we'd left so many hours earlier. I am 100% sure that if dh had said 'hey, guys, look where we're going!' that morning, we'd have had such a revolt in the ranks, we would have had to cancel the hike! Good thing he didn't say anything.
We took a break at the top, and then headed down, with Linnea, now that we were over half done, in a cheerful happy mood. I think it's a lack of confidence thing: once she knows she's done it once, on the way out, she feels better. Of course part of the issue is too many loop trails.
We saw loads of cool rocks, pumice, ash. There are some very cool geologic features that I'll try to describe in another post, but they're quite cute, cool, and conical, but not mini-volcanoes, despite what we hoped.
The way back was a bit long, but not too bad. The bit of skimpy trail over cliff was nerve wracking , but less than on the way out, and we made good time back to the Visitor Center, where there were bathrooms, yay!
It was an incredible hike, and felt like a milestone one: longer than anything we've done with the kids, not one of the kid friendly ones, and the kids -heck all of us- got to see views that most everyone who comes to visit St Helen's will not.
Anyhow. There are loads of photos at my flickr set, even two of me. Since I usually wield the camera, that's a rarity.
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no subject
Date: 11 Jul 2011 18:04 (UTC)None of us have ever gotten to St. Helens, after all these yrs.
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Date: 11 Jul 2011 18:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Jul 2011 22:25 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jul 2011 03:09 (UTC)Glad you enjoyed the pics!
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Date: 12 Jul 2011 00:54 (UTC)What is AC wearing under her knees? Some kind of support, I'm guessing. (When I just saw the back I thought it might be kneepads, and couldn't figure out why she might be wearing those...)
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Date: 14 Jul 2011 03:11 (UTC)The views were truly spectacular. One of those hikes when I wished I'd hauled along the SLR rather than the cell phone camera and the kids' point-and-shoots.