i t z i e . d i a r y l a n d . c o m

Mt. St. Helens // 2003-08-07


Ok, so uh... Hi.

Yeah, I know, I went on that camping trip over a week ago, but for sanity sake, I had to take a break for a little bit. I hope you don't mind an old story. Let's pretend that it happened this past weekend, ok?

So on Friday (the 25th of July), I had off thanks to having worked lots of overtime and working on the previous weekend. Chris and I planned a camping trip for the weekend since he too had a day off. We'd gone camping together two years ago on the Olympic Peninsula. Chris and I are amazingly compatible on long trips. He's a complete freak. He's one of those eccentric people that you see on the streets and you remember seeing them - like the Rainbow Brite man on Broadway, or the old man with the full beard who wears the mini skirts. Chris is the 80's hair band rocker wearing tight pink women's t-shirts. He's been dating my friend, Lauri, for the last eight years. In any case, neither of us has a car, but we both desperately wanted to get out of town for a few days. We decided to rent a car. Since we'd already done the Olympic Peninsula, we decided to try something totally different this year. We went to Mt. St. Helen's.

On Friday afternoon, we pitched my tiny little tent and then headed up to Spirit Lake. The roads were twisty and Chris kept flinching as I drove around the turns. There are no guard rails at Mt. St. Helens. We're all manly men here. No need for silly sissy guard rails to keep cars from flying over the sides of the cliffs - especially around those places where you can see that the road has washed out or fallen prey to avalances before. There was a very old man at the side of the road at one point. He had a telescope and was watching or photographing something. We were hell-bent on getting a hike done on Friday, though, so we didn't stop to see what he was watching. Chris swore that he was waving us over to the side of the road.

We hiked down to Spirit Lake. I got to see an exploded volcano for the first time. I'm surprised that the area hasn't recovered more. It's been twenty-three years since it blew up. I think that most people are amazed that it's recovering at all. The lake is full of dead trees. They're all bleached white and floating in what was once some sort of a fancy resort lake. It's very eerie. There are bits of pumice all over the hike down to the lake. I LOVE how light pumice is.

On the hike back to the trailhead, the sun began to set. The terrain looks so much like the southwest - desertous scrub everywhere and odd little mesa-like mountains. And then, to complete the picture, the coyote began to howl. No, really. They did. I've never heard coyote so clearly before. We heard them off on the other side of the valley yipping and howling to each other. It was all very idyllic - until we started to hear more howling MUCH MUCH closer - like somewhere just to our right. And then just above us to our left. At that point, I decided that I did not want to surprise any coyote while coming up the trail, so I began to stomp and clap my hands and sing Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" at the top of my lungs. This became our theme song for the rest of the trip.

On the ride back to our camp, we passed the strange man hailing us from the side of the road while peering through his telescope. Chris and I decided that we really wanted to see what he was looking at, so we turned around and pulled off the side of the road to talk to him. He didn't say a word, but motioned us to come look through the telescope. He had it aimed at some elk eating on the side of a hill. After we peered at them in silence for a few moments, he told us all about the elk in Mt. St. Helens park - the trials they took, the ponds they frequented, and which ridges they liked to feed on the most. He then pointed out which ones had been born last year and which ones were born the year before that. He showed us some of the oldest males - notable for their large antlers. He goes up there to watch them every day.

At first, I really wondered about him - and his sanity. I mean, really, going all that way to watch elk every day? And then I remembered that when I was younger and I lived next to a stream, I used to go down to the stream every day and watch the fish and crayfish and salamanders. I knew a good deal about their habits and patterns too. My cousin, Becky, still goes to a stream every day to study the wildlife there - just like we did when we were kids, except that she gets paid. One of my favorite days I have ever spent in Seattle was a day that I took at low tide to just go down to the water and watch all of the little critters that lived there at the side of the Puget Sound. I keep meaning to go back. Wildlife watching is such a calming thing to do.

The next morning, Chris and I drove around to the other side of the volcano to "Lava Canyon." You could see three volcanoes from there - they all looked close enough to touch. It was also a lovely little hike, though Chris got freaked out by the fact that we were walking along the edge of a deep gorge on an unstable rocky/sandy path that had lots of signs depicting the Men's Room man falling head-first off a cliff. I can't imagine what his problem was. And then we went over the Indiana Jones suspension bridge. Ok, admittedly, I was mildly freaked out by this when I looked down through the slats I was standing on and the bridge was swaying a good deal. I found that it helped to sing the Indiana Jones theme song in my head. I took some pictures on the bridge, but realized later that I forgot to take the lens cap off. Yeah yeah, shut up. I'd gotten so used to my fancy-ass Nikon that I forgot about the lens cap when I switched over to my Holga.

After that little hike, we decided that we were still up for some more hiking, so we went to Ape Cave. I was disappointed in the apparent lack of apes in Ape Cave. It was named after some men's hiking club in the 1950's. So anyway, it's this big lava tube. A Burning Ring of Fire, if you will - except for the fact that it is a constant 44 degrees Farenheit year-round in there. We rented a lantern and we had Chris's flashlight. We had to return the lantern by 5, but no big deal, right? We had an hour and a half to hike a mile and a half into the cave and a mile and a half back over the surface. Yeah, I had my misgivings too, but Chris was sure that we could make it. Personally, I wanted to go on the "easy" short hike that was well lit and well-populated. Whereas we had been avoiding crowds all weekend, the cave was one place where I woudln't have minded a crowd. But Chris wanted to go up the "difficult" end of the cave and I thought that it might be fun, so we went. Hah. You can see where this is going already, can't you?

So, we walked merrily along the flat bottom of the cave for a while. It was like a paved trail. And then we hit the first rockfall. There was a huge pile of bolders that we had to scale. It took a while to go over it. It also took us a while to figure out that the best paths over such rock falls were not marked. I had a mildly unpleasant moment as I placed my hand in a pile of slimey cave goo while trying to climb over one rock. And then we came to another rock fall ... and another. Chris and I pressed on, just a flashlight and a lantern (that dragged on the ground if I let it hang down to my sides - it is obviously made for much taller people than myself). Just the hissing gas of the lantern in the quiet quiet cave... just me and Chris in the dark, quiet cave. And things were okay for a bit. It was flat for a long time and we were going at a good clip just in case getting the lantern back would be tight. And then we hit rockfall after rockfall, clambering over the rocks in the dark. At one point, the ceiling was only a few feet high. But eventually, we felt that we must be pretty close to the end. We met some folks coming from the other way - and were told that no, we were only about half way. So we began to march a little faster. And then the rocks we were climbing over began to get a little bigger. They weren't just bureau-sized rocks anymore - they were VW bug sized rocks. And then they were SUV sized rocks. So, ok, in the light, maybe this wouldn't have been a big deal. You can see where you're going and where your hands are and where you might get a better foothold in the light. But this was pitch black if you weren't shining your light directly on it. And one-handed, as we were holding light sources. We had to hand them off to each other often now. And then. THEN we got to the rope. A rope with a few knots in it hanging over an eight- or nine-foot tall lava waterfall frozen in time. A very smooth lava waterfall at that. So I tried it first. I got one foothold, but then the only other foothold I could find, (in the dark) was four feet away from my other foot. I stood there splayed on the rock face for a moment, feeling quite stupid, and then I gave up. I told Chris to go first. At this point, we were about an hour into the hike and turning around would take forever. So, Chris tried it. A note about Chris - he was in a terrible car accident our Senior year of college. He has metal posts all through him and he can't bend his legs completely. So he hopped on up the wall (oh, also, he is at least a foot taller than me) and pulled himself up until he was almost there, but then he couldn't get the rest of the way and his legs were hanging over the edge of the lavafall. He began to panic. I mean, really panic. There were a few tense minutes, but he made it up, crawling on his belly. I passed the lights to him and I pulled myself up into the same splayed position I'd been in earlier. And then... oh this is not going to come across in words so well - are you even still with me here? Oh well. Anyway, I jumped up and curled into a fetal position sort of... and put my legs up over the lavafall and I was hanging upside down over the pit where we'd just been and I pulled the rest of myself up arm over arm. This is something I would NEVER have tried normally. I would have just said "oh, I can't do that. I'm not in good enough shape." Anyway, we made it! Only to be met with such a narrow passage that even skinny little vegan Chris couldn't fit through it. So we had to do that thing where you put one leg on one wall and the other on the other wall and shimmy up to where it's wider and you can climb over (and discovered another path around the boulders later). I banged my head severely on the ceiling. Chris banged one of his metal "bones" on something and had to cry for a few minutes in pain. We were getting sick of the fucking cave at this point. I was getting worried that the gas in the lantern would run out and that we'd be down to one light source. I was also worried that Chris was going to have another panic attack. He was definitely very emotionally precarious. I kept seeing light on the walls up ahead. It was like a light mirage - the end? No. Just my lantern shining on the wet walls. Eventually we did see a hole in the ceiling. YES! The end! No. Not the end. Just a hole in the ceiling. I was almost desperate enough to try to scale th walls and just get the hell out of there. Eventually, we found the end and booked it on down to the ranger station to return the lantern - too late. Anyway, the lava cave was one of those things that you do and you feel like you accomplished something really amazing. I guess overall it wasn't all THAT bad... but dealing with a panicking hiking partner, a time limit, and a lantern that was too tall for me was enough to make me feel like I'd just conquered some great feat. I would totally do it again, and now that I know how long it is and what to expect, I think that it would be so much easier. Also, next time, I will NOT rent a lantern. I'm getting a head lamp or a regular flashlight or SOMETHING. I DESPISED that lantern by the end of the trip. Handing it back and forth while we climbed was such a pain - and it was really hot too.

After that, we didn't have much to say to each other. We just quietly went back to the camp, and went to bed. In the morning, we were both too sore to even consider hiking again (all over a piddly little 3 mile round trip hike). We did a little bit of sightseeing, returned the lantnern, and headed back to Seattle.

The End.

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