St. Helens to reopen for climbing

Wednesday, May 31, 2006
By ERIK ROBINSON, Columbian staff writer

Did you like Monday's steam and ash blast at Mount St. Helens?

Soon, adventurous hikers will be able to get close enough to smell the magmatic gases, feel the earth rumble and watch the ash rain down like confetti.

Hikers have been banned from climbing above the Loowit Trail encircling the mountain since the volcano reawakened with a series of tiny earthquakes in September 2004.

"We've decided we are going to open it," Tom Mulder, manager of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, said Tuesday.

The U.S. Forest Service expects to open the climbing route to the south crater rim soon after the snow melts from Forest Road 81, the route to Climbers Bivouac. From there, climbers face a 4,500-foot climb over 5 miles, described on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest's Web site as a "nontechnical scramble," to the summit of the 8,363-foot volcano.

Mulder said the agency is continuing to work out details, such as how to circulate word if the U.S. Geological Survey detects swelling, seismic activity or other warning signs that the volcano may switch its relatively placid eruption into something more violent.

"The USGS told us they think they could give us some advance warning," Mulder said.

Earlier this year, Forest Service officials said they were considering reopening the volcano to climbers. In February, they even began accepting reservations for the 100 permits issued daily during the summer climbing season -- although reservations won't be honored until the Forest Service officially reopens the Monitor Ridge climbing route.

The snow should melt from Forest Road 81 to Climbers Bivouac, at an elevation of 3,700 feet, within a matter of weeks.

Although the volcano has spewed several spectacular ash and steam columns since the eruption began 19 months ago, it has yet to hurl rocks -- aptly dubbed "ballistics" by scientists -- outside the crater.

On Monday, shortly after 9 a.m., a large rockfall from the latest distinct lava spine sent a white plume 16,000 to 20,000 feet skyward. The plume dropped a dark coating of cold ash along the mountain's northeast flank.

Northerly winds would carry similar clouds toward climbers peering down from the south crater wall.

"You might get a little bit dirty, but that would be it," said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist with the David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver.