Today's story is about taking risks, communing with mountain goats, finding cures for deep disappointment and depression, soaking in a cliff-side bathtub, and trying out a new sand spa treatment that will be all the rage soon. There were moments that were bad of course, but then there were moments that were so incredible I am still searching for the breath that was stolen from me. It is as if most of me is still up there and you can only find a piece of me down here in the real world. But to me the real world is up there and this.....this computer, my home, my job, life in the lowlands....this is the fake world. Sadly, most of my life is lived in the fake world and I spend far too much time daydreaming of the real world. But I came home with some wonderful souvenirs from my real world adventure. There was a record breaking over 1000 photos on my camera from the 24 1/2 mile 2-day trip. I brought home memories for a lifetime, bucket list moments checked off, as well as a very bruised right hip and thigh, a grotesquely swollen left hand and a far deeper relationship with my sister....Mt. St. Helens.
Before I get carried away, let me start this story at the beginning. This was to be my last hike in June. True summer hiking and mountain season is about to commence. But we have had so much snow this year, that most of those mountain trailheads are still inaccessible. I could feel God whispering to me to go back to Mt. St. Helens. "You are not done with her", He would tell me. She has been playing a bashful game with me on my last couple of hikes, always hiding her head in the clouds. I could feel the pull to go to her as strongly as I can feel the chair I am sitting on. "But the roads are still closed due to snow." I told God. Of course He told me to check again. The roads from the north are closed by either landslide or unplowed snow. The roads on the south were only open to the last snow parks, but still closed miles to the trailhead I needed to go to. God was very clear that I needed to go to Ape Canyon and the Plains of Abraham this time. But then He whispered to me that with the north side of the mountain closed off, we could traverse from south to north along the entire eastern side of the mountain and go to Windy Ridge and see where Truman's Lodge use to be. This is an area that is normally swarming with humans who can drive right up there to walk around and it would be impossible to take the Wolf to. This moment in time would be my only chance of complete solitude while those north access roads were closed. I just had to get in from the south and hike and climb over 20 miles to do it, with virtually no information about snow conditions. I was going blind and it was a risk. So I did have a back up plan B in mind. Luckily I never needed it, because the day before my hike was to start, the forest service flipped their online post of south access road 83 closed at the snow park, to plowed and open to the end just beyond my trailhead by about a half mile. It was a sign for sure.
Off we went. I was unsure of what conditions we would face. Sure the road was open, but would the trails be choked with snow and ice the whole way? Just a couple weeks ago I was choked by deep snow on the west side of Helens. So I brought snow gear and extra ground pads in case we were going to sleep on ice. I stewed and obsessed about water sources, warmth, food, crampons and ice axes. I like to be prepared, but the weight of my overnight backpack was going to kill me if I wasn't careful. I was already at probably over 30% of my body weight. So I had to leave behind the thermos of hot chocolate that God was trying to peer pressure me into taking. "No!" I put my foot down. "I am taking ice spikes for my feet over the cocoa!" I could feel Him shaking His head in resignation. Somehow, I knew an "I told you so" would be coming out of this.
As we neared the tiny parking lot at the trailhead, we were already seeing snow along the roads. But the trail was surprisingly clear and easy going. For a couple of miles we switch-backed and climbed weaving through the forest still under tree line. The day's temps were in the 80's so we were thankful for the shade, but could feel the heat bearing down on us. My heavy pack and fast rate of speed while climbing was causing me to sweat immensely. I knew dehydration, as usual, would be my enemy today. But I was thankful that the hordes of painful biting flies were not out yet. As soon as we broke above tree line, we came to one of my favorite vistas....a deep crack with waterfall along the trail just in view of Helens, Adams, Hood and Rainier on a clear day.
Once you get above tree line here it can feel a bit like walking on Mars. The ground is all sand, ash, gravel, boulders, lava rock and pumice. It feels very inhospitable and I love it. The plants all start to disappear the higher you go above dead zone. Water was pouring down in rivulets from all around as snow and ice was melting from above and beside us. It would gather together into larger and larger streams to make its way down the mountain. Experience told me that most of these water sources would completely dry up overnight as the sun went down and temps dropped to refreeze the glaciers. But we enjoyed them while we could.
As the rocky trail was crossing in and out of small gullies and ravines on our way up to the Plains of Abraham, we would find snow filling up over the melting waters. We knew these snow bridges could give way under our weight and tentatively walked across them. At the edge of one where we could see the water pouring out beneath our trail, Josie tried to teach Nova how to pounce on the snow edge to make it break. She loves when it does that! But when Nova's weight couldn't do it, Josie got on the edge to dig and pounce until she could get some snow to break free. The ice here was tougher than it looked though and it was even hard for the Arctic Wolf to get it to break, but she loved the challenge of it.
Pretty soon we made it to the edge of the Plains and found a great viewpoint. We stopped to take some photos, get drinks and soak in the beauty when we heard rock fall to our south on a steep hillside. All three of us looked up to the rocky outcropping to see what had caused that. Movement caught Josie's attention first. I pulled my sunglasses off and exclaimed over the new friends we had just found. Normally, they would never have made a sound, but the new baby among them had caused the rocks to fall as she was moving closer to her Mama. We counted 6 in this herd of Mountain Goats. Little did we know what was to come later though!
It was time to cross the Plains of Abraham. This is a phenomenal section of trail full of pumice, ash, sand, rock and boulders and is completely flat. You can't help but see all the boulders that the mountain spewed out of her mouth. This section is full of the remnants of the pyroclastic surges from the explosion that took off Helen's top. You can truly understand the power and total devastation while hiking slowly through these plains. We kept a watchful eye on the mountain with all her eroded canyons and ravines as we passed. The winds in this section were intense, quickly drying out my sweat-soaked hair and tank top. We no longer needed to worry about being hot! In fact as we crossed the plains, we had to walk slightly bent over facing the head winds and felt like we had so much drag we were almost not moving forward anymore. It was a strange sensation for sure.
I knew I wanted to set up camp somewhere on the northern side of the Plains of Abraham. I had read that there was a good water source on that side that I was hoping would not completely dry up over night as we would really do better with an unlimited water source for the night after this hot and dry day. I already was well into a dehydration headache and needed to spend some time rehydrating. But I had one more plan for this area as well. This is near the Dog's Head feature on the northeast section of the mountain where before the blast most climbers summited from. I wanted to find this and see what sort of climbing trouble we could get ourselves into. Now I have summited Helens many times on her traditional route before Nova came into my life. But they don't allow dogs to do that route, so I have not climbed her in years. There are certain rules I find very stupid. Do they think that a dog is harsher to the environment than myself in boots or a mountain goat in hooves? Do they not know that I practice leave no trace hiking? Who makes these rules I ask? Channeling my inner Truman who broke stupid rules too, I just didn't care. My dogs do what I do, we will just do it harder so we don't get caught. So off we went to explore some ravines between the mountain and Windy Pass. They were choked with glaciers melting fast in the late afternoon sunshine. Josie thought it was a perfect playground to climb up.
Eventually we had to call the climb due to conditions. We would need to try again first thing in the morning when the water was turned off after a cold night and the ice and snow had hardened. So we climbed back down and found a place to bivouac in the drainage ditch right below the ravine. Now realistically sleeping in a clear flood plain of an active volcano is not the best of plans, but I figured there was no rain in sight, and if this baby got active overnight, we would have far greater problems than our choice of beds. Besides, I love inhospitable places and this screamed that! Nova voted yes to our campsite as she was tired and thirsty too.
We may not have needed to make our bed on ice and snow, but I enjoyed the double layer of under-pad beneath my sleeping bag for sure. We had the river running right beside us making a lovely and soothing sound to carry us through the night. The water was ice cold glacial melt full of sand and grit, but it helped us all start to feel better. When I had awoken the morning of this hike, I had not been feeling well so chose not to eat anything before leaving. Nor had I eaten anything yet on the hike. Now we had hiked 10 miles in the sun sweating out all my liquids and I needed to take some time to recover before tomorrow's longer hike and climb. We ate some supper and climbed into bed to read until it got too dark to see. Nova decided to play some camp games. This one is called....Look, I'm eating Sister!
As the sun set behind the mountain, we instantly missed her warmth. Temperatures dropped relentlessly and then what felt like hurricane force winds were upon us. Perhaps sleeping next to a place called Windy Pass was not a great life choice after all. The wind pounded us, but worse than that, all the sand and ash across the Plains, around and above us started to pummel us. It was like living inside a sand blasting machine. It filled my hair, scrapped at my skin and stuck to the chapstick on my lips. We had to close our eyes and know that everything we owned on this mountain was being covered and filled in this sand. It was a bit challenging to read, but I persisted trying to keep my back to the wind as much as possible while wearing glasses to protect my eyes. I consoled myself by deciding that posh women in LA probably pay a lot of money for this sort of sandy spa facial! There were moments, however, when I wished we had brought a tent with us....but then I knew the wolf would never use it. So we embraced our sandy cowboy camping that seems to be so unique to our little hiking party.
I am not going to lie, it was a rough night. The wind, the blowing sand, the bone deep cold, the headache, getting hungry in the middle of the night and refusing to do anything about it....it all was trying to steal my joy. There was a brief moment when I asked myself what the hell I was doing and I almost wanted to pack up and leave. But the drill sergeant who lies in my head told me to "Suck it up Buttercup" and I did. Nova and I were shivering in our sleeping bag together and Josie moved from her sleeping pad to the sand and back more restless than normal for her. During one short burst of sleep, I had a dream that my body had turned to nothing but pretzels and was all broken and smashed. I hate pretzels! I won't ever eat them. So I have no idea where that dream came from.
I had used my left hand to grasp and hold the bivvy bag cover over our heads in the fierce winds so we could sleep without constantly having sand fill our ears, nose and mouth. But at some point in the night when the wind stopped all the mosquitos in the world came to feast on my poor un-gloved exposed left hand while I was sleeping. By morning it was almost twice the size of my right hand, so swollen, itchy and painful! It stayed that way for two days and was fun to play a game of which hand is not like the other. It looked like I had been in a bar fight and threw a left hook; which is the story I decided to tell anyone who asked about my hand! But morning was a new day dawning. We waited on the sun to give us some warmth for our old and tired bones.
As the sun rose, it started to kiss the top of our sister Mountain behind us. What a beautiful sister she was in these early morning hours just before 5am. I swore I could feel her life force beneath me as we slept on her. She seems to groan at night in a whisper. We started to pack up to head back up the waiting ravine for our morning climb. Both of the girls looked like I felt and were anxious to see what was for breakfast before the climb.
Back up the drainage ravine we headed until we got to the glacier there. Hardly any water was pouring out this time and it felt like walking in a dry creek bed. The snow was much more solid this time as well. But I knew as soon as the sun rose enough to reach this ravine, the snow and ice would begin to melt in earnest once again. Today was forecast to be even hotter than yesterday and we could feel it even at this early hour of the morning. The higher we climbed, the harder it became. Of course it was steep, but we had to really watch our footing. There was a lot of bouldering to do while all tied together. At times we were in sinking wet sand and glacial silt. At times rocks and boulders were rolling beneath our feet. Sometimes the ice would crack and break under us. Mini-avalanches were occurring all around us and with increasing frequency. The walls seemed to grow higher and higher to our sides, hemming us in. We were racing the sun again this week, but this time she was winning. As she rose higher, her rays were making the snow and ice crack and pop all around us. This mountain was surely very much alive and it was surreal!! We could hear the water already starting to move once again beneath us. We were soon to be in the middle of our very own flash flood! It was as if God had given us the keys to hike on the moon and we had opened that door for better or worse. My brother, Mt Adams, in the distance was screaming at us. I just gave him a friendly wave in return.
Of course this was the moment. This was the moment when God pointed out that I was unable to use my crampons for my boots on the glacier here since there was too much sand and rock on the surface of the ice and snow. So that extra weight could have easily been a much more useful and enjoyable cup of hot morning chocolate. "Stop it!!!" I screamed and laughed at Him at the same time. "This is not the time or place for that!!!" But I knew He was right. He is ALWAYS right. Now I am not going to tell you how this ravine part of my story ends, as I still need some mystery in my life with you my friends. So I am taking that part of this story to the grave. But I will say this is where I obtained a gnarly bruise on my right side and Nova was begging for a trail of wildflowers by the time we climbed back down. Luckily wildflowers for the Princess we found.
Now it was time to head off to the desolate and abandoned Windy Ridge. The trail was so beautiful on the way there. There were wildflowers everywhere and the sun was giving us the perfect amount of warmth, while not yet too hot. The breeze was now gentle and easy going. There were cold water streams of melting snow every half mile or so. It was a whole new world today full of life and joy, peace and quietness. It was heaven on earth and I would not be enjoying this moment had I not gone through the trials of last night. There was not a soul in sight and I found myself humming as we explored the trail system. These were single pass skinny and cliff-side trails through most of this section, so I was so happy to know no other hikers would be out today to have to try to get around with the girls. Even Josie had to admit it was pretty amazing.
It didn't take more than about 4 miles and we were overlooking the exact location where Harry Truman's Lodge had stood along with his beloved lake, which had now all been moved. It was surreal and I couldn't help but think what that must have been like for him. Surely it was very fast and sudden!
While I sat down on a log to take it all in and give a moment of silence, Nova posed for photos before Windy Ridge and the Dark Divide and Mt. Rainier beyond that. I felt like the apocalypse had happened and we were the only humans left on earth. What a wonderful feeling that was!
After realizing that the wolf had gone very silent and that she was not tugging against me incessantly, I turned to see what sort of trouble she was up to. What I found, left me speechless. I had killed the wolf at 9am in the morning. But at least she died with a smile on her face.
Nova and I laughed for a long time before we woke the beast up off her log pillow of splinters and returned to recross the Plains of Abraham. I could feel the sun burns already brewing on my shoulders as we crossed the shade-less region. Thank goodness we were doing it early in the morning before the sun was really beating down I thought! As we neared the previous ridge where we saw our mountain goat friends, Josie remembered them and started searching to find them. My eyes scanned the ridge looking as well. I saw quick movement of white at the very top, but it disappeared quickly. I decided it was time for my breakfast now. After eating less than 600 calories all day yesterday, I was very excited about my large juicy orange this morning. I could not have asked for a better breakfast view in the world! This was what I saw in front and behind me as I ate.
I did not just choose this as my breakfast location for the views alone. There was also a small river running through here that would make washing my hands and face after a juicy orange easy. I might live like a mountain man most of the time, but I have certain standards to uphold. Sand and ash in my hair from sleeping on the ground...fine. Sticky orange juice on my face and hands....not okay. So after carefully making sure I had put every piece of orange peel back in my garbage bag in my pack, we moved down to the river for our wash. That is when I found the bathtub. It was carved right out of the rock making up the slab above a cliff drop. It had the perfect "faucet" of snow melt flowing into it from the stream. The tub was the ideal depth to lay in and I so desperately wanted to strip down and climb in knowing how sweaty and dirty I was.
This is the view while in the tub looking over the cliff edged waterfall to the east. There is only a span of a few feet between the bathtub and the cliff drop. It is amazing! If the water was running high and fast you would be flushed right off the cliff from the tub to your death! Also not a place to be sitting in a flash flood, but what a way to go! Just imagine someone having to figure out why your naked body is at the bottom though.
I will admit that I refrained from my deep desires for the bath. There were really only two reasons for this sudden and atypical restraint. I know this is too much information, so please forgive me, but it was only the second day of my period, so that made it impractical and not very convenient to bathe here. Secondly, I knew I was now only about 6 miles from the trailhead, so realistically other hikers could be coming along at any time and this spot was right next to the trail and very obvious. Besides with my swollen hand, it would be hard to get clothes on quickly over a wet body. Turns out this was a good decision as not long after this temptation I learned that 3 men were camped not far away and were walking towards me. We all lucked out on that one! That would have been awkward on many levels! But one of us did get in the tub and left it full of hair......
Once we got to the other side of the Goat Daycare Ridge as we named it, we found our friends again. This time they were much closer to us though! I made a silent gasp of surprise and delight and we all moved silently and slowly toward them. All three of us knew not to make a sound and to move as calmly as possible. Josie was in full out stealth and stalking mode.
They looked at us a few times and just kept on eating. We counted a party of seven this time and two of them were babies! I knew that they may be overprotective with those babies in their midst, but I had to get closer. I adore goats and especially these wild and free mountain goats! I have goats on my farm at home, but these guys are far bigger and so impressive! We quietly continued to move toward them to see how close we could get. I kept thinking that we may be the first humans and dogs those babies have ever seen! Surely the first wolf and a dog in a tutu they had ever seen! They did seem extra curious about us as they let us get closer still.
They luckily did not appear stressed and kept grazing away. It was breakfast time after all. As we moved a bit closer, one of the big guys put himself between us and the babies. He was keeping a close eye on us now. I was surely holding my breath as I walked up to him.
I could not believe we were standing so close to our gorgeous new friends. I could even smell them now and see how badly they were shedding. In fact they needed to be brushed worse than the Wolf in spring! They had what looked like camel humps of hair over their shoulders that needed to strip off still. I wanted so badly to help them. But then I made the fatal mistake. I knew better! The wild alpine cows on Mt Adams have taught me this lesson twice now. But it is pure instinct and I couldn't help myself. I opened my mouth and started to baby talk them. That is when the line was crossed and they ran away. Josie's stalking mode was over and she wanted to lay chase! It was all I could do to hold her back and make sure none of our lines or buckles or carabiners gave way!
Josie could not believe that she was not going to be able to chase those goats after she did such a good job stalking them! She stared at me with such disappointment and depression on her face. "Sorry Josie". I told her. "We are not chasing down our new friends today". As we walked back toward the trail we had to cross a snow field again. It was really more ice than snow to be honest. But this was an opportunity for Josie to cure her depression over the goats. So we stopped to take the time she needed. Before long she had me laughing and joining her. That ice was real painful on my bare legs though! Shouldn't rolling in snow and ice under a mountain be the cure for all our ailments and disappointments in life? Easy! But then I looked up at Nova and she was looking down at Josie and I like we had lost our minds. I laughed at her. "Come on NovaLeigh", I said to her, "We are living our best life here! Join us!!"
We were now all feeling on top of the world as we headed toward tree line and the trail head. I had places to be and things to do and would have to leave this dream world I was in. We were going to hike 14.5 miles before Noon today and that was only because we were slowed down by all our goat friends. In fact, we ran into more of them at the big chasm in the trail. They were right on the edge. (Look for those white dots on the edge to the right!) This was a new herd with another baby! Clearly Mt. St. Helens had been good to the goats this winter and spring! I was just afraid that if we walked right above them on the trail that they may commit goat suicide. So we stopped to watch them for a long time. When it was clear they were not going anywhere soon, we slowly walked toward them. Once we were on the trail right above them, they got up to move away. The baby jumped up, looked at the Wolf, peed herself and went running after her family with a "Did you see that!!!???" expression. I could hear them lecturing her about wolves already.
It was time to turn into the trees and leave, but it was killing me. How could I leave such a place as this? We took a risk and it paid us back beyond our wildest dreams. All I could say with the deepest gratitude in my heart and soul was a whisper to my Father in Heaven, "Thank you God. Thank you so much" as I turned to leave the mountain I love with one final long look at her behind my shoulder. I would tell you I had tears in my eyes, but alas, I don't have tear ducts.
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