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Trip Report

Loowit Trail, June Lake — Saturday, Sep. 9, 2017

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens
Running across the blast zone

We ran the Loowit trail Clockwise from June Lake.  We started in the dark and got off track on the boulder fields a few times but had a .gpx track which kept us from losing too much time this way.  Other than the boulder field we found the trail to be quite easy to follow.  Two of the river crossings were possible just by jumping (although one in our party had to ford because it was a long jump).  All of the treacherous washout descents/ascents had a rope in place, 4 in total if I remember correctly.  We were able to fill up on water at the Toutle & Loowit creek using a water filter.  There were TONS of blueberries and a ton of bear scat along the trail.  We didn't actually see any bears but we did see a herd of elk trotting out from the crater while crossing the blast zone.

For those looking for berries, we saw a bunch on the descent into the south fork of the Toutle (south of the river along Crescent ridge), and a TON along the trail on the SE side of St Helens.  Between the June Lake trail junction and Pumice Butte.

Stats: ~31mi ~7k gain 9.5 hours

Looking down to the Toutle on the climb out
It's starting to feel like fall
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