March 24, 2012, St. Helen's Day Trip - Vid

Seattle to St. Helen's and back in a day makes for a pretty long day trip, but well worth it.

Five of us met at the P&R at 3:00am and started our drive South.  We got the the Snopark just before sun up.  We followed a packed track till about 4,500ft then we partially broke and partially shared a track with another party of two.  I was the only person in the group with ski crampons, so the crusty snow slowed our party down quite a bit.

We reached the crater rim as the party of two ahead of us waved and started their descent.  We skied skiers right of our ascent path from bowl to bowl the whole way down.  Crusty up top, but at the first bowl it softened up.  Each successive pitch got heavier and heavier.

Our last pitch we let loose a small wet slide and then B-lined it across to some mellower terrain and followed our up track back to the car.  Sat in the parking lot for about an hour drinking beer and soaking in the sun then drove back to Seattle.

Below is a link to the vid of our day:

http://youtu.be/yiVzrlpULx0