Author: Mike Hassur
It’s been a few years
since we climbed the west side of Mount St. Helens to the Johnston Ridge
Observatory (the Tour de Blast route), so this past Saturday’s ride was a
reminder to me regarding how beautiful this route is. It was also a reminder that you have to get up pretty
darned early to drive to Toutle, get your gear ready and be heading out by 7:00
AM.
I was up at 3:45 AM, drank
my chocolate milk, put on my cycling gear and was leaving home by 4:20 AM. The plan was to meet Les Becker, Tom Broxson,
Martin Katzberg and Scott Wagar at the
Park-N-Ride located at the junction of highway 512 and I-5. I arrived at about 4:40 AM to find Les
already there, and Tom pulled in shortly thereafter. Tom and I moved our gear into Les’ van, and
we waited for Scott and Martin to arrive.
At 5:00 AM, I gave Scott a call.
It turned out that they were just a couple minutes away, so we agreed to
meet them at Toutle High School (our starting point for the ride). As Les pulled onto southbound I-5, Martin and
Scott whizzed by us; and we were on our way.
The trip to Toutle HS was
uneventful, and we arrived around 6:30 AM.
After shepherding two baby deer back to their mom (they got stuck behind
a small fence at the high school that mom had jumped over), we got our gear
ready and were heading out around 7:00 AM.
It was chilly (low 50’s), so I was in a quandary – do I try to stay
comfortable in the early part of the ride by dressing fairly warmly, or do I forsake
warmth early on knowing that it won’t be long before things warm up. In the end, I sort of compromised and took my
vest (which I needed for all of about 45 minutes). It wasn’t long before we were stowing our
warm gear in the weeds along the side of the road to be picked up on the way
back.
This out-and-back ride is comprised of three major climbs:
- The climb from Toutle to the Elk Rock Lookout (~ 3,200 feet of elevation gain)
- The climb up to Johnston Ridge Observatory (~ 1,800 feet of elevation gain)
- The climb back up to Elk Rock Lookout heading westerly (~ 1,200 feet of elevation gain)
There are random "ups and downs" along the way to bring the total elevation gain for the 84 mile ride to about 7,200 feet.
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| High and Low Points along the route... |
This ride is deceptive in that most riders think that the toughest climb of the day will be the one up to Johnston Ridge Observatory. It's a good climb, but for me the toughest climb was the very first one from Toutle to Elk Rock Lookout. It's the longest climb, it's the most elevation gain (by quite a bit) and it left me thinking "what is the Johnston Ridge climb going to feel like if this one was this challenging". To my surprise, the Johnston Ridge climb was significant, but it was not as fatiguing as the one to Elk Rock (it would not have been close except for the fact that we (Les, Tom and myself) were going "full gas" up to Johnston Ridge.
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| Martin and Mike... |
The views along this route are, generally, pretty great; but the ones near Elk Rock are spectacular...
From Elk Rock, we descended about 1,200 feet to the Coldwater Lake area where we began our 1,800 foot climb to Johnston Ridge...
Normally, the climb up to Johnston Ridge is sort of challenging. It's not that tough, BUT this time Les - who is normally a paragon of reason - took off after about 600 feet of climbing. Before we knew it, he was 40-50 yards ahead of the rest of us. A chase ensued; and 1,200 feet of hard climbing later, we arrived at Johnston Ridge Observatory. I can't speak for the other guys, but I was "on the rivet" by the end of that climb!!
The signs on the way up said that the Johnston Ridge Observatory was "CLOSED". This was a potential problem, because we were going to need some water for the ride back. When we got there, we discovered the following: the parking lot was pretty full, the gift shop was open (including snacks), the bathrooms were open, there were drinking fountain's including "water bottle filling" stations and THERE WAS A FOOD TRUCK. Apparently, a visitor center being "closed" sometimes means that the displays and movies that are normally shown there are not open; but for us all of the vital services were open (and then some)...👍👍
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| Tom, Mike & Mount St. Helens... |
Okay, 42 miles and 5,000 feet of climbing done; and 42 miles and 2,200 feet of climbing left to go - no problem (after a rest, food and water at Johnston Ridge).
I don't have any photos of the descent from Johnston Ridge (it's difficult to take photos when you are hurtling down a mountain at 35-40 mph). I know - I'm such a wimp...
We had one more 1,200 foot climb to go from Coldwater Lake back up to Elk Rock Lookout. I was sort of dreading this climb, because I wasn't sure how tough it would be. As it turned out, it wasn't bad. The grade wasn't steep enough to be a problem, so we just sort of cruised up. We stopped at Elk Rock Lookout to take a couple of photos...
From Elk Rock Lookout, it was pretty much downhill most of the way to Toutle (which was good as most of us were feeling fatigued). The ride down was uneventful except for Scott Wagar's flat tire - which he seemed to fix in about 5 minutes (good job, Scott).
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| Tom & Les... |
I had sort of forgotten what an awesome ride this is. We had a nice sized group (5 guys is very manageable), we had great scenery and the weather was fine.
Can't wait for our next ride... 👍👍
To see the entire photo album for this ride, click on the following link:
Great ride and great writeup Mike! Super fun ride! Thanks for organizing!
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