It’s hard to find any recent info on the Loowit, so I figured I should post this, even though we didn’t get all the way around. We arrived at the Marble Mountain sno-park/trailhead at about 6:30 am for our one-day attempt at hiking the Loowit trail. We had been warned ahead of time by someone at monument headquarters that “under no circumstances should [we] attempt the Loowit trail.” This of course had the opposite effect and just made us want to go check it out even more. The trail is in rough shape. The stretches that aren’t under snow, across boulder fields, or washed out in ravines are often in a state of sloughing off. My friend made the comment that it was almost like an Indian Jones movie where you have to run as the trail falls away behind you. It wasn’t quite THAT bad, but I think you get the idea. We were stopped just before noon at the large washout just before Sheep Canyon. We were heading in a clockwise direction. It is POSSIBLE to get around this washout by heading down slope for maybe half a mile to a mile, scrambling down, scrambling back up, and then bushwhacking your way up to the trail. We did explore down slope with this thought in mind, but eventually due to time constraints, not knowing what other challenges lay ahead, not wanting to hike into the night and freak out our wives by not making our 10:00pm check in time, we decide to bag the Loowit and instead came up with the bright idea of continuing to bushwhack and explore downslope with the thought of striking the Blue Lake Horse Trail. We were able to eventually find the trail (also washed out – keep to the southern shore of the washout to eventually strike the trail) and were planning on following that to the Toutle trail. At the Junction the Toutle trail to the SE was taped off, wood piled in front of it, the sign pulled out and broken, and new sign saying that the trail was closed ½ mile ahead was posted. Having had enough of scrambling through washouts for one day, we stuck to the horse trail to reach FS road 8100. We followed that past the turn to the climber’s bivouac. We were then able to score a ride down to the junction with road 83, hiked that for a about a mile and half and scored a truck bed ride back to our car at the sno-park. In all, the GPS said we did about 19 miles (after subtracting the car rides.) Not quite as nice as the full Loowit, but a good adventure. As far as we saw, the Loowit is doable given enough time – but it is in rough shape in some spots. We got the impression that the FS is just going to let this one fade away – which is too bad. It’s a great way to sample all the aspects of this unique mountain.

Forest Road 81 is closed 2 miles east of Kalama Horse Camp on the West so we had to backtrack to approach the trail from the East side. Shortly after passing the 830 Road that leads to the Climbers Bivouac the 81 Road has a section which would not be passable without a high clearance vehicle and some areas required 4 wheel drive because of the sandy ash. This is a very short section and after that the road is OK.The sign at Road 830 says road is closed 4 miles ahead. Just before the closure is Forest Road 8123. 0.6 miles up this road is the TH for Goat Marsh. This is an easy hike to a lake and marsh protected within the Goat Marsh Research Natural Area. There is room at the TH on the left for two cars. It is 1 mile to the lake and 1/2 mile from there to the marsh. The trail begins on an old road then turns right which we did, but had to rock hop across a new stream caused by the floods. On the way out we noticed pink ribbons in the area we turned so perhaps there's an easier crossing if you follow the ribbons. The marsh and the lake both have beautiful views of Mt St Helens and relections on a windless day.