Trip Report

What a grand mountain to see, climb and summit - rugged beauty framed by the green forest and clear blue sky. All well worth the sore muscles, blistered feet (I retired my old and well-traveled Danners…they were no longer being kind to my feet) that I now have as payment for enjoying this one-of-a-kind mountain. Our group of 11 climbers was comprised of 6 Obsidians: Mitch and Ken Daletas, Mary Vogel, Sally and Arron Grosscup, Audrey Cummings and Jerry Crosby (climb leader); Val Morgan whom I met in a class at LCC this past winter and who had expressed an interest in climbing the volcano with the Obsidians, 1 visiting student from France, Ben Glon, who is staying with the Grosscups after Arron had stayed with Ben's family in France for three weeks, and 2 visitors from Atlanta, Georgia. We met Beverly Broadman, National Editor for CNN, and Bob Korch, journalist, writer and former member of the Atlanta Braves Public Relations Department at the climbers' bivouac and invited them to join our group. This was the first mountain climb for Bev, Val, Bob and Ben, all of whom were pleased with themselves, as we all are after a successful summit. One even made the comment: "Don't ever call me a wimp again ever again, I climbed Mt. St. Helens." We started the climb at 6:30 a.m. and the splintered group arrived at the summit in the allotted 3 to 5 hours and back down to base camp by mid-afternoon. Climbing Mt. St. Helens is allowed by a limited amount of permits that are issued on a first come, first serve basis the first week in February. Thus, when someone signs up for this climb and does not show up they have not only prevented someone else from being able to sign up but they have wasted a valuable permit space from being used by another climber.