I'm supposedly climbing Mt. St. Helens, but it's nothing like the real thing. It's a nice trail in the city on the coast. I've forgotten my hiking poles.

As we hike along, I see a set of poles that somebody dropped, down low to the side of the trail. As a matter of fact, there are several sets of poles down there, so I pick them all up and look for which are the best ones. None of them are that good; they all have screw-locks, where I prefer clip-locks. I take the best ones anyway.

There are also some very nice dishes and other eating-related items scattered about the trail, and I pile them all up, apparently to take them home. Except this big electric pan full of some sort of food, which I dump out to the side of the trail.

A large group of people comes up the trail, and I'm trying to protect the stuff so that they don't take it from me. Apparently it's the evening, which is a time of the day that there are a lot of people coming up this trail.

We're running out of time for today, but apparently all I really wanted was to collect some beta on the route for a future climb. Before we turn back, I want to go up the trail a bit more, and see where the trail is up the mountain.

We're in like a courtyard, with a stone wall, and we follow the trail out of that, and it's on the coast. The mountain can't be right here. There is a limestone rock on the coastline, but that isn't it. I know we're supposed to be going further east. Across a parking lot we find another trailhead, and a little ways up there, a split in the trail. It's again like a city park, with well-trimmed foliage, and a rock edifice indicating the split in the trail. Both ways indicate Mt. St. Helens.

Ok, that's as far as we have to go for today. This garden is very pretty, decorated with yellow flowers. I comment that I've seen such gardens in other countries, but they were usually for religious reasons.