Mt. St. Helens
It’s an active volcano and we thought it would be cool to hike up it.
The first hour is in trees and is nice. Then it opens up onto the volcano and you climb up a ridge basically to the top. The defining features of this hike are lava rocks and ash. There are many trails up the ridge, you aim for posts that have been erected, but generally want to avoid being too close to them as that’s the hardest route sometimes.
After an hour of that you hit a steep boulder field full of lava rock. It’s a real maze with no clear path so you just have to figure it out up the steep path. After an hour of that you’ve got the final leg which mostly ash and gravel. The last couple of hundred metres is so hard, one step forward, half a step back.
As someone with a fear of vertical drops, there were no problems on this hike - until the view at the end. Get to the top and you are on the crater with a fantastic view and steep vertical drops. A few muinutes there was enough.
As a brief snapshot into life in these areas, everyone we met on the trail was lovely. However we were approached by people wanting us to join (presumably Christian) morning service, many Trump flags and stickers and some guy sitting outside an ice cream shop asking us to vote Trump. Sigh.