BOUNDARY TRAIL 1
Mount Saint Helens National Monument, Washington
~8 miles, ~1600 feet elevation gain
**Nature deficit
disorder, related to full time nursing program, secondary to midterms,
projects, clinicals and volunteer events, as evidenced by patient reports 10/10
pain, self-reported longing for the outdoors, pallor, grouchiness, mood swings
and distraction.**
February FakeOut has arrived, those anomalous winter days punctuated
by sun and warmth, where the world actually has time to dry out before nature
rips the proverbial rug out from under us until June-ish. I have no hard
data to support this beyond what my scattered brain wants to believe, but
February FakeOut seems to arrive every year here in Portland: just when you
think you cannot take another day of
the deluge, the soggy pant hems, the tip-toeing through leaf-clogged puddles, the
steel gray sky.... POOF! Sun! We've had over a week of clear, windy skies
torturing me from the windows of clinical, taunting me during my slog up the
hill to lecture. It is gor-geeeee-ous outside. And right now, I am badly in need
of a mental health day. Being neck deep in chronic illness 24/7 is making me
twitchy.
Pharmacology be damned, I'm going outside.
It feels exceedingly strange to put on sun block.
One of the things I love about the alpine is its ever changeable
mood. We were looking for an eclectic hike, full of views and shifting
conditions so we headed north to one of our favorite areas, the blast-tortured
north face of Mount Saint Helens. On our way up long, winding Washington
State Route 504, Andy commented how strange it is that people travel from across
the globe to visit Helens, yet for us, she is practically in our backyard- a
beloved recreational area. Living in the Pacific Northwest is not for everyone,
but it is necessary for souls like ours.
The area near Johnston Ridge never fails to fascinate me.
Here, the north face of the mountain fell away, scouring an entire new
landscape in its wake as it deposited the largest (recorded, mind you, recorded)
landslide in history down the valley of the North Fork of the Toutle River. The
pyroclastic blast felled old growth like toothpicks, and the splintered remains
of the ancient forest still litter the ridgelines. Whole new lakes were formed while
others were obliterated, the entire area basically picked up in a giant fist,
remolded, and set down again upon the earth.
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| Boundary Trail, January 2011 |
We arrived at the Hummocks trailhead to sun, bluebird skies, and basically being overdressed. Patches of icy snow lingered but nothing tangible enough for the snowshoes strapped to our packs. Our sights were aimed higher though, so the snowshoes stayed on.
The Hummocks trail is an interpretive trail, which I usually
tend to avoid like the bubonic plague. But this one, I give credit to: it's an
outstanding (and unpaved, thank god), undulating, 2.5 mile walk through the
hammered landscape of the North Fork of the Toutle River, where the landslide
deposited 3.7 billion cubic yards of earth fourteen miles down the valley. You
literally walk upon ruined pieces of the mountain's previous summit- hummocks.
From the Hummocks trail, we picked up the Boundary trail,
which quickly winds its way up the ridgeline on its way to Johnston Ridge
Observatory. Once around a corner, the wind found us and remained fierce for
the remainder of our hike.
Upon hitting wind-scoured snow, the trail was lost, and in
this area, there is no hope of finding any trace of trail once it is gone. So
tortured, so unique is the landscape, no semblance of any path remains once it
disappears under snow. In summer, the Boundary trails hugs the cliffs,
traipsing its delicate, precarious way to the observatory. With the snow and
wind and the awkwardness of snowshoes strapped to our feet, we stayed high and left
of the trail, climbing a large promontory overlooking the Loowit Viewpoint.
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| Hugging the cliffs, March 2010 |
I sat, buffeted by the wind, watching the mountain, my
vision tracing the undulating lines left over by the landslide, taking in the
tormented color of the earth, the snow-covered silhouettes of the Mount Margaret backcountry and
Mount Adams gracing the skyline. I sat for a long time, until I was almost too
cold to move, even though I was now wearing everything I owned. From the trailhead, the temperature had dropped 25 degrees.
These are the days I need to remain grounded, to resettle my
soul, to remain humbled in the face of all that is before me.
Time to tackle pharmacology again.