The Mountain Calls and I Must Go

Day One of a three-day weekend and a miracle. Blue skies. Wind is 14 gusting to 22 at 9 degrees off runway heading. Pretty gusty on the ground, wind trying to tear the hangar doors right out of my hand. Good thing Gordon was along to help corral the doors. I’d noted Mount St Helens standing out boldly in the clear from my home so had invited Gordon and his wife Irene to visit the mountain. With gusty winds we wouldn’t be able to get close, but that’s okay, going to say hello anyhow.

Just as I finished my run-up at the end of 34, in came a 172 that was clearly working to stay ahead of the winds. Crabbed and making several adjustments. This told me the flight would offer some challenges and I put it in my mind to be aware that my lady passenger was new to small aircraft flying. I need not have been concerned. Irene took to flying like she’d done it all her life.

It was my intention to fly down to, and then past the mountain, remaining alert for wind shear or downdrafts and staying well away from her glistening sides. But as we approached, flying over the foothills at 6,500 - no bounce. Glass smooth.

I ventured closer, right toward her open throat. At 4 miles from her broken rim, I cautiously turned east to test her mood and found perfectly smooth air – glass it remained.

I turned and flew straight into her caldera, then right over the venting dome and across to the other side. Still the air is glass.
Never before have I found there to be no winds, drafts, turbulence anywhere over or around this mountain. Never in 7 years of visits. Today was one in hundreds and I took full advantage, passing over and around in every direction and height.


Path and I played with Saint Helen. Down into the Caldera, right through the steam venting from her building dome, then up and over a low point in the jagged rim with edges soaring above us on each side. With every turn Gordon, Irene or I called attention to new eye-popping views. Mt. Adams to the east, Hood to the south. Expanses of snow marked with tracks of snow mobiles. A snow clad waterfall fed by steam melted snow.
Spirit Lake and Mt Rainier to the North.

Then I spotted, on her south flank, what appeared to be a string of rocks, perhaps the spine of a ridge poking through the snow. But wait! I know this mountain and no such a ridge exists. I fly closer and slower and then I see.

“Look! It’s a string of hikers climbing the mountain!” “Look. There, at the top edge of the rim, see a whole crowd of them.”
Another first – I’d seen snowmobilers buzzing up this side and right up to the rim, but never hikers. We just had to go around and come back past them several times to be sure we got a good photo. Finally after nearly an hour of discovery, I turned Path away and we flew down to the valley floor following the path of the mud flows as I pointed out still standing blasted trees and the re-routed Toutle River.

some of the photos we took were good, but I would have dearly loved to have a real photographer with us on this flight.