Fossil Trail

The Fossil Trail leaves the Kalama Horse Camp on the south side of Mt. St. Helens and climbs eight miles round trip through some of the heaviest old-growth in the Gifford Pinchot. Noble fir and western hemlock four to six feet across crowd the lower miles, with western red cedar in the moister pockets. The first mile is the climb — twenty percent grade in places — before the trail eases as it crosses Goat Marsh Creek and Cold Springs Creek and rolls up toward the lahar.

The trail ends at a debris field deposited by volcanic mudflows from past eruptions. Goat Mountain rises five thousand feet to the north; the lahar's clay-and-pumice surface marks where superheated slurry tore through the old forest. The contrast — primeval canopy below, raw geology above — is the trail's signature.

Hikers can extend by connecting to the Toutle Trail and looping in toward Blue Lake for a longer fourteen-mile day. The path stays on ash, pumice, and clay soil throughout, free-draining and dry in midsummer despite the wet country it passes. No standing water — carry what you need.