Loowit Trail: Circumnavigating Mt. St. Helens

Mt. St. Helens - 2013

I had been wanting to run around Mt. St. Helen’s ever since I volunteered at the inaugural Volcanic 50k. It’s a mandatory and classic adventure run for all PNW trail runners. During the last two seasons, however, I followed a pretty strict racing calendar, which would usually leave me wiped coming into the late summer and early fall season. This was prime time for adventures in the high cascades. After Waldo 100k of last year, I decided to take a break from racing and focus on exploring new areas and checking off some classic PNW volcano loops. I have always loved the exploration element of trail running more so than the racing part so it was a natural, easy progression into adventure mode. My main goals of the summer: explore the Mt. Margaret Backcountry, run around Mt. St. Helen’s and run around Mt. Hood.

My preparation for the Loowit trail was pretty strong from a mileage perspective, but a little lacking in the time on your feet training. The average finish time for the Loowit trail is somewhere in the ballpark of 8-9hours, which makes it a pretty burly 50k. However, significant portions of the course cross lava boulder fields, rendering running pretty much out of the question. Combine that with 7k feet of dusty, sandy climbs and descents and you’re in for a long day.

June Lake at the beginning of the run

Originally I had planned on doing the loop with my buddy Andrew Langfield, but Med school ended up sucking up most of his time for training so he made the right call to bow out. Left with no other companions, I set out early 8/30/14 to give the Loowit a go solo. I wasn’t too nervous to be running around alone. I feel confident in my abilities and decision-making so navigation and fitness were accounted for. I kind of secretly enjoyed the idea and challenge of running for 8 hours alone in the mountains.

However, the day had different, safer plans in store for me. While getting ready to go in the trailhead, two other fine gentlemen happened to pull up having the same intentions as I did. We departed separately, but quickly joined forces at the first boulder lava field. Safety in numbers!

The only downside to the day was that the weather did not really cooperate. I had considered running the loop a few weeks earlier, but the 85 – 90 degree temperatures had me pushing the run out. In the end, we ended up getting weather of the opposite kind. Drizzly, cool and foggy. Envision running in a cloud. These are fantastic running temperatures, but not so great conditions for glorious mountain views. Oh well. At least we weren’t going to die of heat exhaustion.

Here are some photos from the day:

Aaron and Josh navigating the mine field.

Navigation became somewhat difficult in the lava fields due to the fog. We had a hard time finding the next pole marker here and there even though they are not that far apart.

Sheep Canyon was really cool coming in and out of the fog.

Loowit trail cutting around the canyon

Looking into Toutle River canyon

Unfortunately didnt see any goats although I know they're out there.

Need to work on my action shots. Still kinda blurry.

 

Toutle River canyon at the down of our very wet descent. Pretty amazing to see what the power of the river can do.

Wahoo a picture of me.

Aaron and Josh coming out into the pumic fields on the NW side of the mountain. This section would be pretty grueling in hot temperatures.

Our only decent view of the mountain all day.

More fun pumic scrambling. Would have been cooler with a few views.

 

I wish I had taken some video of the fog flowing over the mountain.

Loowit Falls in the distance coming out of the Breach.

Aaron climbing up to Windy Pass. I really enjoyed this little climb.

 

Topping out at Windy Pass.

My fueling and hydration was pretty much spot on the whole day. The only mistake I made was running and jumping onto a boulder to take this shot while crossing the Plains of Abraham. Immediately after, my IT band on my right side started barking at me pretty bad. Made for a very annoying and painful end to the run. Lesson learned.

Victory selfie. Unfortunately there weren't any Loowit Trail signs at the Trailhead.

Group victory selfie

All and all it was a great day with good company. Thanks again Aaron and Josh for letting me tag along. I still need to do this run in good weather so I'll definitely be back.

UNT

Bryan