FKT: Peter Kesting - Mt St Helens (WA) - 2022-09-17

I started around 8:30 after a 2 mile warmup down the road and back. Given the cool temps in the mid 40s, I chose to not bring my vest with water but opted for the trekking poles which I'm super glad I had them once I hit the upper gravely choss section for the final 1500 feet. The first 2 miles were relaxed and fast since I knew there would be a lot of power hiking for the second half of the ascent. Once I hit the ridge, I jogged wherever I had some good footing that wasn't too steep. This was my first FKT attempt on Mt. St. Helens so I didn't have much of a gauge for how fast I needed to grind. After finally making it the the rim, I looked at my watch at around 1:08 and realized that was the split Jeret had when he set it a month earlier in August. But boy did that gap from the initial rim view to the true summit look massive. I knew it would be close and kept pushing for the final 6 minutes only to better Jeret's time by just 20 seconds!