The perfect end to a perfect hiking season – St Helens. A strenuously rewarding hike which gets extremely demanding in places, especially climbing and traversing boulders through the mid section and if that is not enough the last one mile is just loose gravel and ash. You gain an elevation of roughly 4600 feet in around 4.5 miles and takes around 240-300 mins for a motivated hiker (times may vary).

Warning: Carry plenty of water as there aren’t any sources of potable water on the mountain, next to none. The only running streams are available halfway through the mid section (that also if you are lucky and hiking in the right season i.e. when the glaciers melt) but these may carry loads of ash.

The gorgeous view… beautiful, beautiful, beautiful…