The Mount St Helens Institute has a lot of great volunteer programs that help visitors to the Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument.  I encourage everyone to get out and do some volunteering on your public lands!  It's a great way to meet people and help maintain what we all appreciate.  The season's first work party in March 13th at the Monument Headquarters and it will be working on the tools we use to do trail maintenance.  There are also trail work parties on trails mtb'ers use, such as South Coldwater and Butte Camp trails.  Check the Mount St Helens Institute's website out for the individual work parties, and sign up for one or more!  You'll be glad you did!

Dave

Winter has set in at Mount St Helens.  Road 81 is now closed at the Cougar Snow Park - at the junction with Road 83.  Road 83 is now closed at the Marble Mountain Snow Park.  Both roads are gated at those locations.  Those areas are open to winter style recreation.  For updated information go to: http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/recreation/current-conditions/roads.shtml

Aaron has a dream, and it's a mighty challenging one.  He dreams of riding his mountain bike from the Ape Canyon Trail up to Windy Ridge, connect with the Boundary Trail head east and then ride down the Quartz Creek Trail and then finally connecting to the Lewis River Trail to finally arrive at the Lewis River campground, a soft air mattress and a much awaited beer.  That is a very big challenge, which definitely has some potential to it!  Who knows, maybe it could become an official ride called the Aaron's Challenge!