May 20, 2011, St Helens father/son Cornucopia

Beautiful day on St Helens yesterday for a little pay it forward. St Helens was my very first volcano climb and ski back in 1978 when my dad hauled me up there when I was 8yrs old with full alpine gear via the North/Dogshead route. I'd been wanting to get down there for the past few years and do the same with my son but either weather or injury had prevented it. With the nicebut short weather window this week and the ample snow pack, I finally pulled the trigger/let him play hooky from school for the day to get it done.  We set out just after 6am and with a good freeze from a couple of clear nights travel was easy with continuous snow from the Marble Mtn Snopark.



With some valuable help from ski crampons, we were able to skin the entire route. 






The snow began to soften around 9am and a few groups with earlier departures skied down skiers right of the climbing route. I began to mentally calculate our topping out time and whether the snow would be past it€™s prime by the time we reached the top and wishing we€™d left at 5am, but with a steady pace and some strong work by the little guy, we reached the crater rim around 10:45am.



Spirit Lake with Rainier in the distance


Mt Adams in the distance fat with snow


We started back down @11:30 and any concerns I had that we were going to be too late for corn were quickly dismissed. Perfect conditions along our selected down route for nearly 5K had us grinning, hollering and gorging on the perfect corn.

Little C tore it up.










Mountain graffiti.


The snow was so good I contemplated heading back up for another lap, but it likely wouldn€™t have been as good in another hour. The trail out had a few sticky spots but was still firm enough in the shade for rapid descent with just a little poling.  There€™s a solid 3ft of snow still so a continuous ski should be likely into June.

Viva la dynafit.