Scaling history

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. - For all the talks interpretive guide Nick Racine has given to visitors about this volcano, standing on the crater rim and watching as the mountain pumps out tons of rock in its own rebirth left him nearly speechless.

Racine joined a group of rangers, scientists and journalists in a five-hour ascent of 8,363-foot Mount St. Helens this week, a week before the crater rim is scheduled to be opened to climbers for the first time since the mountain began quietly erupting in 2004.

Dust, steam and blue-tinted sulfurous gas rose from the horseshoe-shaped crater left by St. Helens' 1980 eruption, which killed 57 people and blasted more than 1,300 feet off the peak.