I'm Aaron Holden, a chef and amateur boxer from Nampa, Idaho. Last September, my friend Ryan Thompson and I hiked the Loowit Trail around Mount St. Helens.
The official maps call the loop about 33 miles. Ours came out closer to 36, with more than 6,660 feet of climbing.
We gave it three days. The mountain used all of them.
Ryan wanted to go because the mountain is near where he grew up, where he proposed to his wife, and where he wanted to spread his dad's ashes.
My dad told me it had the potential to be one of the most meaningful things I could do. About two months out, we locked in the dates and started weekly training hikes with our backpacks. Ryan called a ranger before we left. It was the end of the season, and we were told to watch for bears and cougars.
We drove there in Ryan's truck, passed through Cougar, and started and finished at June Lake. We camped the first night on the shore. It dropped to about 45 degrees, cold enough that we drove out for a warmer sleeping bag and came back a little behind schedule.
Sept. 15 started easy: dirt trail, big firs, leaves just beginning to turn.
Then the trees thinned, and we stepped onto miles of sharp lava rock, finding our way by wooden posts and piles of stone. Rain came and went, and the fog rolled in so thick that the next post sometimes wasn't there. We got lost a few times and navigated with a map and the compass in my dad's knife.
Then came the gullies carved straight across the trail. Sometimes, the last hikers through had left a rope. Sometimes, there was nothing.
We kept going by headlamp until 2 or 3 a.m., 15 or 16 hours from dawn. It was pouring, cold and muddy, and we were dehydrated. Around midnight, we got lost for about an hour in giant gullies with no marks at all. We slept a few hours and woke up wet, behind schedule, with a fried battery bank.
On Sept. 16, the clouds lifted long enough to show us where we were headed. We dropped into the South Fork of the Toutle River, filled every bottle — the last good water before the north side — and walked into the blast zone.
At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook the mountain, and the whole north face gave way. It was the largest landslide ever recorded. The volcano blew out sideways and knocked down about 230 square miles of forest. Fifty-seven people died. The summit dropped 1,314 feet. The north side of the Loowit Trail runs right across what's left.
Camping is banned for the next 10 miles, so once you start, you're committed. There's almost no water. A suspension bridge we'd planned to use was snapped on one side, so we took the long way around. We'd downloaded a playlist before we lost cell service: "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones for the packs, and "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash for the volcano. From the north side, we looked straight into the crater. Steam rose from the lava dome the entire time we watched.
Across the pumice plain, the Johnston Ridge Observatory sat closed. A 2023 landslide had wiped out the only road in, and it wasn't expected to reopen until 2027. We had the view to ourselves.
We came around a slope and found a whole herd of mountain goats. Then came Windy Pass, the scariest stretch of the trip: a steep, loose trail no wider than a boot in places, with drop-offs hundreds of feet down. We reached it at sunset, with the wind screaming over the ridge and slamming our packs hard enough to knock you off your feet.
We kept our heads down and kept moving. After 15 hours, we camped on a flat patch of pumice and slept under the brightest stars I've ever seen.
Day three, Sept. 17, was supposed to be the easy one. It wasn't.
We were out of water before noon. I was dehydrated, my head was killing me, and my legs were shaking on every rope climb.
Ryan was sunburned and more exhausted than I've ever seen anyone, and he didn't complain. Washout after washout. Then we finally hit the trees, and a cold, clear creek at June Lake. We filtered water and drank as if we'd crawled out of a desert. The trail ended where it started. We dropped our packs on the sand and stood there for a while.
Neither of us said much.
It's 425 miles home, about seven hours in the car. We were exhausted, sunburned and dehydrated, and even though the coldest night was only about 45 degrees, we had gotten hypothermic — soaked in rain and sweat, then standing in the wind at dusk.
It took me about a week to recover. I came home humbled. That trip is a big part of why I finished my books.
“Ash, Rope & Ridgeline,” the memoir I made from the hike, comes out Nov. 24, 2026. I shot every photograph in it myself on the mountain in September 2026. The paperback ISBN is 979-8-9824662-3-5, from Endless Pursuit Publishers. More about the book is at thelunaodyssey.com.
Excerpt from “Ash, Rope & Ridgeline” by Aaron Holden
CHAPTER 8
DAY TWO: INSIDE THE BLAST ZONE
Some history first. At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook the mountain, and the whole north face gave way. It was the largest landslide ever recorded. Then the volcano blew out sideways and knocked down about 230 square miles of forest. Fifty-seven people died. In one morning, the summit dropped 1,314 feet, from 9,677 feet down to 8,363. The north side of the Loowit Trail runs right across what’s left.
Fifty-seven people never walked out. Their silence is what we walked through.
Past the Toutle, you’re in the blast zone, the mountain’s silent heart. Hardly anything grows there. For miles, it’s nothing but pumice, so light and full of holes that it barely feels like rock. Camping is banned for the next 10 miles, so once you start, you’re committed. There’s no shelter and almost no water. Rain squalls rolled over us, but none of it made it into our bottles. For the first time in two days, I worried about dehydration as much as hypothermia. We rationed every mouthful. Somewhere along the way, we reached the suspension bridge we’d planned to use, only to find one side snapped and the crossing blocked off, so we had to drop down and take the long way around.
Every plan you made at home turns out to be a lie once thirst shows up.
We knew we’d lose cell service, so we downloaded a playlist before we left. On those long, dreary miles across the blast zone, the music kept us moving: “Beast of Burden” by the Rolling Stones for the packs and “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash for the volcano.
Out there, a good song trades at water prices.
From the north side, you can look straight into the crater, and we stopped to take it all in. Steam rose from the lava dome. Mount St. Helens is still active, and it smoked the entire time we watched. Across the pumice plain, the observatory sat closed atop Johnston Ridge. A 2023 landslide had wiped out the only road to it. Crews were rebuilding the road, but the observatory wasn’t expected to reopen until 2027. We had the view all to ourselves.
Stand at an edge that big and your problems finally come out scale-sized.
CHAPTER 9
DAY TWO: CROSSING WINDY PASS
Past the crater, the trail runs east across open pumice. Wooden posts and rock piles are the whole navigation system. After the lava rocks on the south side, my feet were fans.
Then we came around a grassy, gravel slope and spotted a whole herd of mountain goats. They had the hillside to themselves and seemed to know it. I kept my voice down so I wouldn’t scare them off. “Look at these running around.”
Scariest stretch of the whole trip: Windy Pass. The trail there is steep and loose, with drop-offs hundreds of feet straight down, and in places it’s no wider than a boot. On a calm day, you’d take it slowly and test every step. We got there right at sunset, with the wind screaming over the ridge. Gusts slammed into our heavy packs hard enough to knock you off your feet, and a fall up there would have killed us. The light was going fast, so we didn’t stop to wait it out. We kept our heads down and kept moving. I planted my hiking staff in the loose pumice before every step and watched the next few feet of trail and nothing else. We didn’t slow down until the ground finally leveled out.
Fear on a ridge like that doesn’t get beaten. It gets outwalked, step by step.
On the far side, the clouds broke for a few minutes, and the pumice plains lit up as if they were on fire. Up there, our phones picked up a few stray bars and came alive. It was the only signal we had the entire trip.
Two minutes is sometimes all hope gives you. Turns out that’s enough.
We were trying to make it to the campsite, but after 15 hours of hiking, we had to call it a day. We set up camp on a flat patch of pumice next to a tree and slept under the brightest stars and constellations I’ve ever seen.
•••
Aaron Holden is a chef, backpacker, amateur boxer and author in Nampa, Idaho. He has cooked for 15 years and baked for five, working his way up from the line to assistant general manager. His true, full-color memoir, “Ash, Rope & Ridgeline,” follows his trip around Mount St. Helens on the Loowit Trail, and he took every photo in it on the trail. It comes out Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2026. His gritty survival sci-fi novel, “Red Moon,” launches on Kickstarter Tuesday, Nov. 17, and comes out April 13, 2027. He lives with his dog, Milo. Learn more at thelunaodyssey.com.
