Mountain-top experience

If Maggie Ray’s fifth-grade teacher asks her to write an essay about what she did this summer, she’s got a doozy of a story. On Aug. 22, Ray and four of her Hutton Elementary classmates climbed Mount St. Helens with their fathers.

It was the 10-year-old’s second time at the summit. She and her dad, Rob, shared the adventure last year. When he mentioned returning, she agreed, but this time she asked if she could bring some friends. From there the plan evolved, and eventually four of her best buddies and their dads were on board to tackle the mountain.

Rob Ray said, “I used to climb Mount St. Helens every spring when I was younger.” Since he’d made the climb several times, he was confident the girls could handle it. “It’s a pretty nontechnical climb.”

The group traveled over on Aug. 21 and camped out that night.

“It was fun sitting around the campfire, roasting marshmallows with my friends,” Maggie Ray said.

One of those friends, Allegra Vanderwilde, giggled and said, “Our dads were telling stupid, scary stories. Maggie’s dad told us Bigfoot stories!”

At 8:30 the next morning, the party of 10 was ready to scale the volcano.

“It was perfect weather,” Rob Ray said.

They used the Monitor Ridge route from Climbers Bivouac, where they’d spent the night.

The girls enjoyed the trek through the wooded area before the real climbing began.

Jim Burg, who’d brought his daughter, Audrey, had said he assumed the ascent would be like “a steep hike up a hill.” Fellow climber Matt Rawlins had similar thoughts. They soon learned differently.

“We went just expecting a hike, but it was very much more mountain climbing,” said Rawlins.

His daughter, Amanda, was eager to start the climb. But when she looked up at the beginning of their ascent, she confessed, “I was a teeny bit nervous.”

Rawlins shared her anticipation, “When we came out of the woods and saw the first boulder field we were kind of excited.” He paused. “Then we reached the next boulder field.”

The huge lava rocks were bigger than the girls and some boulders were taller than the fathers as well.

But that didn’t daunt Maggie Ray.

“I liked climbing over the boulders,” she said.

Some of the dads could step from rock to rock, but the girls had to scale them. “It’s a hard five miles up the rocks,” Burg said. “You see this wall of rocks – millions of tons of rocks.”

The boulders are a product of past eruptions and aren’t yet worn smooth by erosion. One girl cut her finger, another got a scrape, and most of them got blisters.

Some dads were more prepared than others.

“My first-aid kit was toilet paper and duct tape,” Burg said with a chuckle.

Fortunately, they met climbers on the route who had Band-Aids to share.

For Russ Vanderwilde the climb was especially arduous. “I broke my pelvis a couple weeks before the climb,” he said. But he didn’t want to disappoint his daughter, Allegra. He used ski poles to maneuver up the mountain.

While the skies were clear and sunny, weather on Mount St. Helens is changeable.

“We must have taken our coats on and off about 10 times!” Burg said.

All the fathers expressed awe and appreciation at the way their daughters doggedly persevered.

Ten-year-old June Phang said, “The higher you climb, the more confident you feel.”

Her dad, Kevin Phang said, “When I was in the military I did something similar, but because I had to, not as a leisure activity.”

It turned out conquering the boulder fields was easier than what came next. As the group neared the summit, the rocks gave way to a steep ash- and sand-covered slope.

“I didn’t like climbing the sandy parts,” said Maggie Ray. “It seemed like it took forever. We’d take one step forward and slide back two steps.”

Matt Rawlins said the final 1,000 vertical feet were tough. “The girls would count out 100 steps, and then we’d stop and rest.”

But at last they reached the summit. The girls peered into the massive crater.

“The lava dome was huge!” Audrey Burg said.

They enjoyed breathtaking views of Mount Adams and Mount Hood, and off in the distance Mount Rainier’s peak stretched into the sky. They also glimpsed Spirit Lake still partially covered with felled trees from the 1980 eruption.

They ate lunch atop the mountain, exhilarated by their success.

“I was very proud of myself,” said June Phang. “I forgot how tired I was.”

Allegra Vanderwilde concurred. “Looking down and seeing how far we’d climbed was pretty amazing. I felt like I’d really accomplished something.”

Surprisingly, the descent offered as many challenges as the climb.

“There were a couple points where each of them had a moment when they would have rather been doing something else,” Russ Vanderwilde said.

` And for most of the girls, that moment came as they descended. With no summit to motivate them they began to feel their aches and pains.

“On the way down you start to notice your feet hurt,” Maggie Ray said.

Despite her blisters, she still sees more mountains in her horizon.

“I’d like to climb Mount Adams or Mount Rainier,” she said.

It took the group five and half hours to make the climb and about four hours to descend. They agreed the sense of accomplishment and shared adventure were worth all the effort.

For Kevin Phang the trip was especially meaningful. The Korean-born American enjoyed observing the interaction between dads and daughters.

“The American style of this father/daughter thing was very new to me,” he said. “All I’d seen was from Hollywood movies.”

He travels a lot for his work but was glad to be able to make time for this excursion. Climbing the mountain was exciting, but for him far more enjoyable was the time spent with his daughter, June.

“Just watching her,” he said. “No matter what she says or does – just seeing how she was reacting – that was the best thing for me.”