It was a cloudy day so we chose a woodsy hike with few views. We hiked a lollipop loop from the Blue Lake trailhead using the Toutle Trail and the Blue Horse Trail (incorrectly labeled on the Green Trails Mount St Helens map 332S as the Blue Lake Trail.

Getting to the trailhead: Forest Road 8123 has some very rough and eroded segments with large boulders sticking out of the road bed and deep ruts and potholes. The road only extends about 1.5 miles from its junction with FR 81 due to continued flooding and debris flows washing out the road. The trailhead has been pulled south on FR 8123 so the hike is now longer than shown on the map and in the hike description on this website.

There no longer is a trailhead kiosk, just a sign on the side of the road. There is not any trailhead parking lot; just park on the shoulder of the road.

On the trail: The Toutle Trail was in great shape: it has been logged out and did not have brush intruding into the trail. We started out hiking on a rocky, sandy trail on older debris flow deposits for about 0.3 miles to the junction with the Toutle Trail 238. We turned left to go north on the trail towards Blue Lake.

The well-marked and defined trail headed out across the debris flows. We could hear Coldsprings Creek in the distance as we made our way diagonally across the piles of rock rubble.

There used to be a signed junction with the Fossil Trail, but it has disappeared as this dynamic landscape is ever changing and shifting boulders, rocks, gravel and sand down the drainage.

We came to a sign for the Toutle Trail at the horse ford of Coldsprings Creek. The water is too deep for hikers to cross here. I knew from past experience that someone has placed boards and logs to make a dry crossing for hikers farther upstream. There are many user trails going through the young cottonwood forest towards the creek so it is hard to tell which is the correct one to find the crossing, and the path is not signed.

I overshot it at first and had to backtrack to get across Coldsprings Creek and onto forest trail tread that existed prior to the 1980 eruption. We soon came to a view of Blue Lake through the trees.

The trail climbed steadily along the side of a ridge through oldgrowth noble fir forest and brought us to Huckleberry Saddle, 4,000 feet, at about 2.7 miles from our start.

We turned onto the Blue Horse Trail, which is on an old logging road now being reclaimed by nature. We found lots of black huckleberries, the best species for eating, and paused to grab handfuls to eat as we hiked.

As we crossed the headwaters of Coldspring Creek, the road became very overgrown with alder trees that we had to push through before opening up again.

A large, rotten log lay across the road. I looked to the left and found the Blue Horse Trail going up the ridge. This was the spot to leave the roadbed; it used to be marked by a line of rocks across the road.

We switchbacked up to the ridge crest and followed the trail along the ridge and as it descended down the east side towards the debris flow. Several large trees had fallen across the trail but had not been logged out. We could see the back side of Butte Camp Dome and the lower slopes of Mount St. Helens through gaps in the trees.

The point where we left the ridge and started across the debris flow was marked by several blue ribbons on tree branches. We saw cairns and footprints to show the way for the first couple of hundred yards, then nothing. No well-defined trail or markers to show us the way here.

We worked our way diagonally across and down the drainage trying to pick the easiest route among the rubble and boulder fields. We crossed a small stream -- hard to believe that this little creek could move all this rubble down the mountain!

We descended around the curve in the drainage and eventually we spotted some weathered orange flagging on tree branches. We entered the forest but it took some looking around to find the trail tread off to the left.

Once back on the Blue Horse Trail, it was marked every so often by orange diamonds high on the trees and the rough, rocky tread was easy to follow. Several more fallen trees blocked this trail. We could see why the Blue Horse Trail is not seeing a lot of horse use.

After about a mile, we reached the junction with the Toutle Trail and turned right to hike back to the junction with the trail to the Blue Lake trailhead.

Our hiking group members had various mileages on their devices but we concurred that 6 miles seemed about right for the distance. #hikeathon

We hiked the Blue Horse trail to the Toutle trail for a short loop, the weekend of the Bigfoot 200.  The route does not include the Blue Horse trail so we had  quiet first half where passed the snotel site at Huckleberry Saddle (yes there were huckleberries ripe, and ready for snackin'). We have been on the Mountain during the Bigfoot before. The last time was a few years ago when we camped on the pumice plain for the perseid meteor shower.  It adds an extra buzz of excitement to the day (and night if you are backpacking).

Plenty of runners strode past as we made our way down the Toutle trail back to the TH.  

It was a perfect day for a short hike.

There were no bugs to speak of. 

The trail is in good condition, with a couple of logs to step over and one downed tree on the Blue Horse Trail that could be removed, (at N46.11.526 S122.15.184). 

On this misty day, we started from the Blue Lake Trailhead and hiked a loop using the Toutle Trail and the Blue Horse Trail for about 5.5 miles total and 560 feet elevation gain.

We saw one person fishing from a small inflatable raft in Blue Lake and we encountered a couple backpacking up the Blue Horse Trail -- otherwise we had the forest to ourselves. Huckleberries -- both the Oval-leaf and Black species -- were ripe so we grazed as we hiked.

Clouds hung low over the mountains and a few passing sprinkles blew by -- but not enough moisture to put on a rain jacket. The forest is so dry that any moisture is welcome. We did not see any mushrooms and most wildflowers had faded away for the year.

We paused at Huckleberry Saddle for lunch then turned towards our return hike on the Blue Horse Trail. Huckleberry Saddle is no longer the open shrubland of huckleberries and views of Mount St. Helens that it was some 40 years ago; trees have grown back and blocked the view. Wherever there is an opening, however, the ground is covered in huckleberry plants and we saw many signs that bears have been fattening on the ripe berries.

This trail is in serious need of brushing where silver and noble fir saplings are reclaiming the former road bed that it follows. We had to wind through Sitka alders that had completely enclosed the trail.

We crossed the head of the Coldsprings Creek drainage and used our binoculars to see the spring far below in its deep canyon. We watched for the point where the trail heads off the roadbed to the left and switchbacks up the slope. The turn was well marked with rocks across the roadbed.

The trail crested on the east side of a ridge and we could see the northwest side of Butte Camp Dome through openings in the forest. The trail took us down the side of the ridge and switchbacked down to the Blue Lake Lahar. The point where the path entered the lahar was well-marked with orange flagging. Cairns and flagging started us diagonally down the lahar, but then we lost the route. We knew we needed to find the trail on the south side of the lahar, so we ended up picking the easiest route we could find about .2 mile downstream, until we saw orange flagging waving from a tree branch. When we looked back, we saw orange flagging and cairns leading to an alder grove across the lahar, so the route is marked going the reverse direction.

We re-entered the forest, hiking under predominantly lodgepole pine and western white pines growing on much older lahar material that pre-dated the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. We descended to the four-way junction of the Blue Horse Trail with the Toutle Trail. We turned west on the Toutle Trail and returned to the trailhead. 

To kick off the 2021 Hike-A-Thon we did a clockwise loop around Goat Mountain and Goat Marsh using the Fossil Trail, Blue Horse Trail, Kalama Ski Trail and Toutle Trail. We left the Kalama Horse Camp about 8am, under sunny warm skies.  There were few bugs on our route except for some annoying non-biting black flies on the north side of Goat Mountain.  Most of this route is heavily used by equestrians so be ready for a dusty pulverized tread during the dry season.  We saw only two other hikers the entire day, just a mile before reaching our car.  Total distance 13 miles, cumulative elevation gain 2,600 ft.

To kick off the 2021 Hike-A-Thon we did a clockwise loop around Goat Mountain and Goat Marsh using the Fossil Trail, Blue Horse Trail, Kalama Ski Trail and Toutle Trail. We left the Kalama Horse Camp about 8am, under sunny warm skies.  There were few bugs on our route except for some annoying non-biting black flies on the north side of Goat Mountain.  Most of this route is heavily used by equestrians so be ready for a dusty pulverized tread during the dry season.  We saw only two other hikers the entire day, just a mile before reaching our car.  Total distance 13 miles, cumulative elevation gain 2,600 ft.