What a beautiful day!! We started our climb at 5:10am and I think there was only 1 group before us. The first hour or so in the dark which was pretty cool through the forest. once we made it to the boulder field, it was getting lighter and the sun slowly started to rise. We had views of Mt. Adams during sunrise and it was gorgeous! Just like many have said, the boulder field is never ending. I actually enjoy climbing through and up boulders so it didn’t bother me too much, it’s just long & a majority of the hike. The trail is easy to follow - if you can see the posts as you’re climbing, you’re on the right track. There’s a trail to the left of the boulders which is a little less rocky. We eventually made it up past the boulders into the “Ash.” I assumed this part would be very slippery and hard to climb but surprisingly it wasn’t too bad. There are little rock’s imbedded with the ash so there’s a bit of traction. This last push was probably our slowest as it is a steep ascend. You can see the top yet it seems so far away. Once we made it to the top, we were blown away! I’ve never seen anything like it, it was incredible. In addition, the views are amazing - Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adam’s & Mt. Hood are showing off! We made it to the top in 3.5 hours, enjoyed our breakfast and started the descend 30 minutes later.


As we started our descend, the trail
was getting a lot busier. We were able to walk/slide pretty quickly through the Ash section and once we hit the boulders, we kinda weaved between them and the trail to the right. Our legs definitely felt shaky and had a couple moment of almost falling. After the boulders, it was a quicker trek back to the car. Took us 2.5 hours to get down.

We came across quite a few hikers asking us questions which made it seem like they hadn’t looked into the complexity of this climb. It’s a very challenging climb. Lots of water, snacks & layers! Trekking poles helped a lot as well.

A perfect day on Loowit! We did a guided climb with the Mt. St. Helens Institute and couldn’t be happier with the experience.

We had absolutely beautiful weather - not too hot, not too cold, just right for the activities of the day.

I took about 4 liters of water and only consumed maybe 3. On a hotter day, I can easily see needing all 4. There was no water or snow melt available on the trail to filter.

People don’t always have nice things to say about the boulder section of this hike, but I actually found it to be fun. I’d recommend cheap gardening gloves for this section as some of those boulders can really cut up your fingers, although my husband survived without gloves by being discriminating about which ones he touched.

The ash section at the top was demoralizing at times as you slide backwards a bit with every step you take, but it didn’t last very long; I also found it easier to do a kind of “duck walk” with my toes turned slightly outward to slide backwards less (I have no mountaineering training and maybe this is not recommended by experts, this is just what worked for me). Hiking poles made it much easier climbing this section, and I definitely needed them on the descent as I slipped and slid through the ash and loose rocks.

It was a pretty busy day on the trail, and we encountered several people who didn’t have permits, didn’t have any water, and/or dangled their feet off the edge of the crater rim at the top. Please don’t be that person!

Start early to avoid cooking on rocks (4:30-5am). Forest section is easy in the dark.

Once at posts marking trail, it gets hard going up the rocks. In the dark, it's easy to miss the posts leading to the left. It's a long way up the rocks, no super clear path in spots, lots of little ones, but all roads lead to Rome, as long as you stay near the posts. This section has some scrambly bit depending on what way you go. Navigating through some parts is really choose your own adventure.

If you are a lady, near the weather station is one of the last good spots to find a rock to pee behind. After that, it's just up the gravel/ash. The first bit is winding and compacted, not too bad. Then you hit the really deep stuff right before the rim of the crater, and it takes forever to get through that. Trekking poles help a lot.

Follow the rim to the left for the summit, it's more tiring than you'd think. Up and down and up and down. Some areas are pretty loose on the downs.

I brought 6L of water and drank 5.5L even starting at 4:40am - and that doesnt count the 1L of tea I drank in my car before leaving (I drink more water than the average person. 5L is probably enough if you leave early). This trail really dries you out though.

Took me 7.5 hrs RT. It was very smoky and I could taste the wildfire smoke in my mouth the whole way up. Super windy at the top and lots of blowing cinder, was in my eyes and mouth, and everything I wore is coated in it now. Coming down the rocks was almost as hard as going up them. With the sun on them, they really radiate a lot of heat.

Recommend: starting early, lots of water, sunscreen, hat, trekking poles, electrolytes, big sunglasses to shield eyes from blowing dirt, eye drops if you wear contacts, a buff to cover mouth, garden gloves for scrambling over sharp rocks.

I wore shoes with 250+miles on them and still got hot spots just from trying to grip going downhill.

It's 8.6mi, but don't underestimate how challenging this is, both going up and down.

Road to TH is rough but passable for sedan, made it VERY slowly in Hyundai Elantra without scraping or getting a flat tire. bathrooms ok, but low on TP. plenty of parking.

Rose: Wow what a beautiful hike. Standing on the rim and looking into the crater and the views along the way are worth the climb and the rough forest road.

Rose: Our 6 and 8 year old kids made it to the summit. We started at 8am and it took us 11.5 hours - 6hrs going up and 5.5hrs coming down. The first 2 miles were a nice warm up walk through the shaded forest. The kids loved climbing over the boulders in the boulder fields. The final section through the scree was a rough, slow slog.

Rose: The volunteer at the summit had some super cool, interesting facts and tidbits about the mountain. And had extra water to give away. Thank you!

Bud: Next time we will bring lots of water (we drank all of the 11 liters we packed for the 4 of us) and remember to apply sunscreen or wear long sleeves. And bring the hiking poles we accidentally left in the car.

Thorn: The road was the worst forest road we have been on in our model Y, but we made it. We saw a few Prius’s and other lower clearance vehicles that also made it.

Sunrise hike of Mt. St. Helens via Monitor Ridge on 8.26.25

ROAD: 2.5 miles of forest road at the end to contend with. Lots of potholes, ruts and rocks. I just rode it sloooow over the rougher spots with the little Nissan Versa Note and made it, as did some other passenger cars.

Toilet was open and had TP but was definitely ripe especially with the heat. Lots of nice tent spots at the parking area!

TRAIL: I began my hike in the very dark night at 1.40 a.m., a loud screech and call of a barred owl startling me and sending me on my jumpy way out of the parking lot. Thankfully the forest was uneventful (yes, I am paranoid about cougars when I hike alone in the dark).

Finding my way up the boulders to gain the ridge was a little confusing in the night, but Gaia kept me on track. Like many reports state, I stayed to climbers' left and lower of the poles that mark the ridge, where there was generally a decent bootpath to be found in the gully.

As I climbed, there were definitely some sections through the boulders that needed some use of hands to get up, but if you find yourself yarding on loads and loads of rocks for an extended amount of time, you're just doing it the more challenging way and there's an easier path somewhere. I definitely found easier paths on the way down than my way up, when I could finally see (overcast and just past a new moon? I'm a sucker for punishment). 😆

The final few hundred feet to the crater rim were mostly sand/scree/smaller rocks - a little slippery, but not bad, and much easier to deal with by headlamp than finding my way through the boulders had been.

I reached the crater rim at around 5 a.m., quite a bit earlier than I expected. It was still rather dark, so I sat and had a snack and waited for a bit more light before I began the traverse to the crater highpoint/true summit.

There was a bootpath that pretty much hugged the crater rim. This traverse involved some descending and reascending several times through more scree and a rocky section before I reached the summit area - a larger flat spot marked with a cairn, right before the unremarkable highest point on the ridge.

I stayed a while, watching the sunrise progress, before making the ups and downs back on the traverse to return to where I had come up. Sadly, the views were pretty smoky but it was still a pretty morning.

Wildly, no one else was around for sunrise, and I didn't see any other humans until I was maybe half an hour into my descent. It was a bit surreal and almost creepy being the only one on the crater rim while I was up there for over an hour, since there have always been other people around every other time I've been there!

I definitely thought it was worth hiking in the dark to beat the heat and get a sunrise to boot. 😊

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