Butte Camp, Loowit Trail — Sunday, Jul. 31, 2011

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

Mosquitoes were most fierce at the Red Rock Pass trailhead; snow was deepest at Upper Butte Camp (the basin behind Butte Camp Dome and below the Loowit Trail). In between, we enjoyed a great hike up this interesting trail that traverses a variety of ecosystems from lava flows to oldgrowth forest, young post-eruption forest to alpine slopes. Along the way, I spotted a natural arch near the trail. At Butte Camp itself, the traditional climbers' bivouac prior to 1980, snow covered much of the ground. The stream was running full and strong. We climbed the switchbacks through oldgrowth noble fir-mountain hemlock forest to a clifftop view back towards Red Rock Pass and Mount Hood on the southern horizon. Then we found the trail through a young lodgepole pine forest totally buried by snow. I pulled up the map on my GPS and we were able to navigate across the flat to the melted-out ridge where we regained the trail up to the junction with the Loowit Trail and our lunch/turnaroud spot. Amazingly, much of the red heather already and bloomed and gone to seed! Other blooming flowers included alpine buckwheat, partridgefoot, strawberry and paintbrush. Much of the area still was covered in snow. Marine air from the west kept clouds swirling over the summit of the volcano but we had sun on us most of the time. We met two women and a dog coming along the Loowit Trail from the west. They were the only other hikers we encountered that day.