Way back in 1976 Mt. Saint Helens was a spiffy looking regular Cascade volcano. It was one of a set. Collect em all. The entire set is of course open for interpretation but in my story I reckon they are the peaks that have the classical conical shape and have a significant amount of glaciation and/or permanent snow. So from North to South I figure them to be as follows: Mt Garibaldi, Mt Baker, Glacier Peak, Mt Rainer, Mt Adams, Mt Saint Helens, Mt Hood, and Mt Shasta. All part of the Pacific Rim of Fire. There are a bunch of others of course like the ‘Sisters’ and Mt Lassen, and one could argue for their inclusion but since this is my story I am sticking with this line-up. All of these peaks have technically pretty easy routes to the summits. Yet there have also been fatalities on these laid-back routes as well, so please don’t ever be fooled when in the mountains.
St Helens was named as you probably all know, after a British diplomat; Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron St. Helens, although the indigenous peoples obviously had their own names for the peak; the Klickitat for instance, called it Louwala-Clough. Around 1829 there was a cockamamie scheme by some fellow from back east to rename the Cascade volcanoes after American presidents. If that had occurred, then it would have been called Mt. Washington
The DM and I, and another guy named Johnathon decided to climb St Helens. You could drive right to the start of the climb. It was a dead easy ascent also. We took the Dogs Head route; pretty much just a casual stroll to the top. But, it is a stroll over a glacier with crevasses and bare ice and all that good stuff. It probably has some 30 degree slopes in some areas as well. It does get up to 2,950 m in elevation (well it did) so there is potential for a bit of altitude issues in some people, and of course mountain weather is mountain weather. So while the ascent in climbing terms is trivial it is not without a certain amount of risk.
We were prepared for this type of climb as was our norm. We had a 9mm rope, prussik slings, ice axes, crampons, mountain clothes, boots, some of the ten essentials, etc. The standard kit. So off we went. No need for a real alpine start either so that was a nice bonus that we didn’t often get. Now, we hadn’t gone very far when we came upon an interesting scene. There was a tent and some people out on the glacier. A bit unusual being so near to the road and all, but not that out of the ordinary either I guess. At least until we got a bit closer that is… The people were a man and woman and two small children. Apparently the deal was this. The man and woman were setting off to climb to the summit. The two young kids were going to be left alone for the day to play at the tent which was perched pretty close to some crevasses. We were on a glacier remember… The ‘adults’ were very well equipped for the climb… they were wearing blue jeans and running shoes. They had a short length of what looked like clothesline and they had a stick to share between them. We were of course nothing short of incredulous. Not only did these people not have a clue about negotiating the terrain that they were on, they were recklessly endangering their children. Our friend John, who happened to also be a paramedic, really tore a strip off of these two clowns. In no uncertain terms he had a real come to Jesus talk with them and actually was able to make them see the light, and thus they abandoned their attempt, and returned to their tent and the kids. He might have saved four lives that day.
It was a beautiful day and we slogged our way to the summit without incident. Just to highlight how easy this climb was by ‘climbing’ standards we found a spark plug in the summit register and an Arctic Cat sticker.
The other people were gone upon our return, presumably off to other foolish and irresponsible errands.
I had always wanted to return and climb it again, by a route known as the Shoestring Glacier, but of course that was never to be…
Some years later on May 18, 1980 my buddy Bruce and I were up a couple of pitches of an obscure rock climb at Squamish. It might have been Crap Crags. We both heard or rather, ‘felt’ something like a thump. And were like “what the fuck was that?” We didn’t really pay it anymore notice after that. Once back home in Vancouver later in the day we heard on the news about St Helens erupting, and it seemed that the timing of that event coincided with that noise we felt. That’s almost 600 km away!
The Bridge of the Gods
Probably one of the most famous of the Indigenous American legends regarding St. Helens is known as the Bridge of the Gods. As it is told by the Klickitat, the chieftain of all the gods and his two sons, Pahto and Wy’east, traveled down the Columbia River from the far north lands in search for a suitable area to live in
Eventually they came upon a region that is now called the Dalles and they had never seen a land so beautiful. The two sons argued over the land, and so to solve the dispute their father shot two arrows from his bow — one to the north and the other to the south. Pahto followed the arrow to the north and settled there while Wy’east did the same for the arrow to the south. The chief of the gods then built the Bridge of the Gods, so his family could travel and meet from time to time.
The sons of the chief of the gods both fell in love with the (proverbial) fair maiden named Loowit. She could not choose between them. The two young chiefs fought violently over her, burying villages and forests in the wake of their battle. The area was destroyed and the earth shook so violently that the huge bridge fell into the river, creating the rapids of the Columbia River Gorge.
For punishment, the chief of the gods struck down each of the three lovers and transformed them into mountains where they fell. Wy’east, with his head lifted in pride, became the volcano known today as Mount Hood. Pahto, with his head bent toward his fallen love, was turned into Mount Adams. The beautiful Loowit became Mount St. Helens, known to the Klickitats as Louwala-Clough, which means “Smoking or Fire Mountain” in their language.