Loowit 360 Fail Bail

26 miles of hiking • 6250' elevation gain • 1 night

Just an incredible adventure, with the most awesome trail friends a guy could hope for. Ended up "only" making it 26 of the 32 miles, bailing out at Windy Ridge due to rather severe heat exhaustion. (Two in our party continued on around, and finished, though!)

We camped at Marble Mountain Sno-Park, so we could get a really early start on the day. Left the June Lake trailhead, just a couple miles away, a bit before 5am. Hadn't ever seen June Lake before, and was actually pleasantly surprised at how nice it was, what with the very fancy water feature and all! Probably didn't please the tenters nearby as we stumbled past to take photos at this ungodly hour.

We chose to go counter-clockwise on the Loowit, to get both the terrible blocky lava fields and the Toutle crossing out of the way earlier in the day rather than later. This proved to be an excellent choice. Just cannot imagine what it would be like trying to get through those lava fields after dark. Probably impossible. The only people we saw on the south side were as we crossed the Monitor Ridge climbing route, which was something of a pit stop being there was an outhouse there.

As we continued around past Butte Camp Dome and towards Sheep Canyon, the flowers really started to come alive. Lots of beargrass at its prime, scattered patches of heather, some brilliant paintbrush, deep purple lupine, and all manner of yellow things. Very nice! I'd expected more of the paintbrush and lupine on the north side, so I didn't take many photos of that, which was disappointing as it was nearly absent entirely across the blast zone.

Descending 1600' to the South Fork Toutle River was the sort of thing one does knowing it's gonna cost. Climbing the 1000' back up wasn't too fun. By that time, I was starting to feel a bit dehydrated, with some minor muscle cramps. Probably should've heeded advice to turn around then, and return to the Blue Lake trailhead, but was way too stubborn to do that.

We continued across the face of the breach, marveling at the sheer scale of it all. Numerous waterfalls empty the crater, and send gushes flowing across the pumice plains, but nothing you'd want to drink in a non-life-threatening situation. While we (mostly) had to wade across the Toutle, everything on the north side was possible with rock hops.

At about 20 miles, the leg cramps were getting pretty intense. I knew of an oasis ahead, and was determined to make it there. As it turns out, that was the only other source of palatable water around the entire volcano! Well, finishing the loop was pretty hopeless at this point, so I and one companion took a bail trail off to Windy Ridge after an hour spent rehydrating (me) at the natural spring.

As luck had it, we hooked up with a (two-hour!) ride back to June Lake from the first folks we asked. What a miracle! Hikers are such cool people! We beat the two others in our group by about 45 minutes, and surprised the hell out of them as they finished.

Lots of lessons learned, and still being learned. This keeping alive business is serious stuff. :-)