Mount St. Helens - Monitor Ridge — Monday, Jul. 11, 2016

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

We started at 8:30am from Climbers bivouac, 2 of us + a 13 year old, it was cloudy & foggy but no rain, 1st couple miles through the trees were a breeze, until we reach the boulders, it was very cloudy or foggy with limited visibility but we made through boulders without any major issues, but it is 2500 ft climb through the boulders and not easy, you have to be careful. Once we got over the boulders, we were above the clouds and sun started to shine, we saw the summit and thought we made it, but it took another grueling 45 - 60 mins to reach thru the top through the scree, Looks us five hours to reach the top at about 1:30pm, We did hear birds not do not see any other than a couple of crows. We had snow crampons and ice axes, but did not have to use it, no snow on the trails, we had beautiful views of mount Adams, Raineer, and Hood, crater and dome was visible. we stayed for about 1 hour, started down at 2:30pm. Coming down was ok thru the scree, but once we reach the boulders, we had dense fog/clouds, at times was hard to see the posts marking the next stop, going down thru boulders seemed harder than going up, as we had to be more careful about not slipping, and looking down finding an easier way down was harder than looking up. Once we crossed the boulders, going through forest trails was easy, we did see deers not too far from the trail and hear lot of birds; took us 4 hours to come down, could have been faster, if not for the 13 year old, back at car park ing by 6:30pm. before coming down, took a Ibuprofen that helped, coming down easier, took 2 liters of water each and 1 littler of gatorade, we finished most of it, Overall very nice hike, wouldn't recommend for little kids as boulder can be hard to cross, even though I did see a couple of younger kids. We did not glissade down, but there were folks glissading down, and they made it down faster than us.