Loowit Trail — Friday, Jun. 18, 2004

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

The Loowit Trail Trip Report: WOW!!!! That’s about the best word I can come up with to describe this trip. From my perspective, it wasn’t just a backpack…it was an adventure. It was tougher than when I climbed St. Helen’s last month! On a clear skied Saturday morning, starting from the June Lake trailhead (elev. 2700’) myself, my son Adam, (Henceforth dubbed the trail name, ALTIDUDE) Crwdog, his wife Marlyse, D3fold and Rainrunner headed upwards to join the Loowit trail. We did the trail in a counter-clockwise fashion and generally stayed between 3200’ and 4800’. Just past June Lake on trail 244, we encountered many downed trees that required going under or over. The woods soon gave way to The Loowit Trail (216) and rugged lava flows that the trail traveled through. The trail in many places throughout this entire trip was only marked by rock cairns or unique wooden guide posts placed at intervals so you could go generally in the correct direction. Over the lava flows, rock hopping we went. Rainrunner became the first casualty (And most repeated casualty) of the trip when she scraped a leg on the sharp rocks. Ouch! Past the first lava flows the trail re-entered the woods and became VERY sketchy. With downed trees, no markers and snow patches here & there, the only way to distinguish the trail location at times was to look for the cut ends of fallen trees. It appeared as if we were the first persons this season to travel this section of the trail! Past the crossing of the climbers route at Ptarmigan trail, (216A) the trail once again entered huge lava flows, much larger than the first ones we encountered! There was NO trail…one just had to aim for the cairns or the guideposts for about a mile of extremely rough, up and down rock hopping. Spirits were high, though and we all took it in “stride”. Easy going for awhile, then we encountered “The Gullies” which plagued us for most of the trip. Sometimes HUGE, deep, gullies that intersected the trail, forcing us to scramble, slide or bounce down steep, loose rock & ash to the bottom, then cross a usually dry stream-bed and then at times claw our way up the other side whenever there wasn’t a re-routed trail present. Whew! They really slowed down our pace! A really big one on this first day was at about 2.5 miles past trail 238A, that had about a half mile total re-route. We eventually arrived at a high overlook at the South Fork Toutle River that provided a grand view of the monstrous gully that held the Toutle, plus a glimpse of the “Restricted Area” on the opposite side of the gully that we would go into tomorrow. We made our way down to the river bottom and set up camp for the night right next to the Toutle River. It had been a 14 mile day. After refilling our water at a nearby spring about ¼ mile down the Toutle Trail #238 and a quick dinner, everyone sacked out just as the sun went behind a ridge to the west in preparation for an early start for a long 19 mile day tomorrow. On the trail at 6:15AM, we scrambled down the 8’ high vertical gravel banks of the Toutle, crossed it and headed up switchbacks through the woods. They soon gave way to a scary, steep, loose scree-slope that we gingerly and slowly traversed up to the restricted area where there was a gorgeous view and meadows. We then headed across the blast zone, which became more and more desert-like and extremely desolate the further we went. The devastation that the eruption had caused in this area became quickly obvious, but there was green re-growth in places. HOT! Man, it was hot today in this place! About 90 degrees or so, but thankfully there was a little breeze blowing to make sure the dust that kicked up from our boot steps would stick to our sweaty, sunscreen encrusted brows. We startled a herd of elk as we topped the rim of one of the many gullies of this north side of the mountain. 14 cows thundered down the gully, while 3 huge bulls tried to sneak off undetected in the opposite direction. Soon, The Breach of the volcano came into view with Loowit falls coming out of it. Awesome! Again the trail became sketchy and difficult to follow due to erosion and deposition for about ½ mile on an active alluvial fan. There were only a few cairns to be seen. D3fold shifted into high gear about this time and after giving him one of our radios, he took off ahead of us slow pokes and scouted for the correct route. It should be noted at this time to everyone reading this that might do this trail that the lack of decent water is a very serious factor in this entire circuit! We nearly ran out and were going to try to filter some crappy, glacier silt ridden goop, when d3fold radioed us that he had found an oasis, complete with trees! We had heard this pure water source existed, but its exact location was not known to us. (It’s between Loowit Falls trail 216F and Windy trail 216E) We hurried ahead and found a crystal clear spring, bubbling forth from some rocks. We filled our containers and drank our fill directly from the delicious water source, not worrying about “water nasties.” Onward we went, across the gullied desert and soon went up a series of “real” rock switchbacks blasted out of a cliff to Windy Pass and out of the restricted area where we once again met up with d3fold. The pass is aptly named by the way and was a grassy delightful place to take a break and see forever in most all directions. Down from the pass we went on another steep, loose scree slope and onto the flat and desolate Plains of Abraham. The trail was pretty obvious in the dirt and easy to follow and d3fold went ahead. Rainrunner had gotten dirt into her boots and I stayed with her while she cleaned them out and everyone else continued ahead. We found my son, Altidude sitting along the trail at the far edge of the Plains of Abraham, looking pretty exhausted after 15 miles. The remainder of the group had gone ahead since Rainrunner and I were only 15 minutes behind them. It was about this time that shin splints started bothering me pretty badly and I also slowed down dramatically. The three of us continued on at a slower pace along the east side of the mountain, across many more gullies, interspaced with woods. At a gully draining the Shoestring glacier, the trail was obliterated. We had to scramble down nearly 100’ of the steepest, worst stuff yet! We helped each other down and back up the equally difficult far side without many more abrasions. We were stopping frequently to rest since the trail between Ape Canyon trail #234 and June Lake trail #216B had now became lava flows and large rocks again, which combined with our maladies made us pretty darned slow. We were passed by two trail runners who told us that they had left June Lake trailhead this morning at 8AM going counter-clockwise and now had nearly completed the circuit in about 10 hours! Pure insanity in my humble opinion! After 2 miles of lava flows, the trail finally came down into the woods where it soon joined the June Lake trail and out to the trailhead. Yay!!! Instead of the 3 ½ hour drive home that faced us, I drove us to Woodland and crashed at a motel for the evening. Ahhhhhhh! Shower….bed…..pillow! NICE! All in all, a very good trip. I wouldn't reccommend doing it on only two days to us ""normal"" backpackers though.....too much mileage due to the No Camping restrictions placed on people going through the blast zone. Hoosierdaddy.