FKT: Brittany Haver - Mt St Helens (WA) - 2024-10-06

I'm honestly surprised this route hasn't received more attention yet. I mean, come on, a summit AND the established Loowit all the way around. Pretty epic day. Ending with another summit (sum>circum>sum) would be cool too, if it were August and you could catch both sunrise and sunset.  Ashly always puts up solid FKT times so I was grateful to have her record to chase to keep me pushing, and it's also fun to wonder to myself while I'm out there-- did she, too, curse at this damn boulder field and then this endless hill in the last 6 miles?! Haha I'm sure she did.  

I tagged the summit in 2:15 hrs, which was perfect timing for the 7:13am sunrise. On the descent, I realized there was definitely an easier/faster route up without so much boulder crawling, but I couldn't see it in the dark, was only following trail markers atop the rocks.  The summit was brutally windy and cold, and gorgeous. The rest of the day after hitting Loowit was mostly in solitude.  I did come upon two different herds of mtn goats on the SE side, resulting in seeing more goats than people all day. Fall is a lovely time of year for this. There are two places to fill water, fortunately pretty well timed: around mile 14.5 in the Toutle River, and then mile 22.5 in the glorious spring half mile past the junction to Loowit Falls Trail junction (will be after the silty stream). I only carry a liter so I did run dry and thirsty the last 4 miles.  

Loowit is not a cruisy route-- definitely cannot just look at the stats and estimate a time based on other efforts on other routes.  She'll slow you down with boulder fields, ravines, thickets, sand, lots of up, lots of rocks, and sometimes a disappearing trail. Then again, there are some athletes out there that have absolutely crushed that trail in insane times-- and those killer runners would crush this FKT route too if they so choose.  I hope to see it!