Did a short exploratory trip to the south side of St. Helens on 5/19/24 to check conditions along the 83 road and other areas. Road 83 was mostly melted out with a large washout .5 miles from Marble Mountain Snowpark. Road 81 from Merrill Lake to Redrock Pass was mostly clear except for a couple snow banks near the pass that were easy to negotiate. Road 81 from the other direction (via Cougar Snowpark) had much more snow and was not passable in our 4x4 truck. We took a very short stroll from Redrock up to the lava field using the Toutle Trail #238 to view the mountain with no snow on the trail. Did not venture past the lava field. We also hiked ~ 1 mile along the long-closed logging road 690 to try to find Kalama Spring, the source of the Kalama River. It was a brushy mess and it does not get close to the spring so we turned back.
#Hikethestate
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