5/11/12-5/12/12 Mt. St. Helens
5/11/12
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
1755
3
Headed up Friday afternoon to camp just above Chocolate Falls so we could get an early start for the summit on Saturday AM and avoid the developing instability NWAC forecasted later in the morning. Snow was skinnable about 100' from the trailhead with minimal dry patches along the trail from that point.
We began climbing from camp around 2:45AM and everyone in our party made the summit by 8:30. The snow had firmed up nicely so climbing was not bad on skins and ski crampons and eventually bootpacking w/o crampons for the last few thousand vertical. Observed a 1' avvy crown to climber's left that appeared to have slid on Friday.
My buddy Caleb and I dropped in at about 9:30 for the descent. The first few turns were a bit icy but quickly softened up to perfectly smooth corn until just below the weather station where it got a bit mushy but still a lot of fun.
The debris from the avalanche photographed above:
Saw hundreds of climbers on the descent. Apparently they issued over 400 permits for Saturday and over 600 for Sunday. It was a zoo and we were glad to get out of there before things warmed up too much.
All in all it was an awesome spring corn day - much better than we expected given the forecast!
We began climbing from camp around 2:45AM and everyone in our party made the summit by 8:30. The snow had firmed up nicely so climbing was not bad on skins and ski crampons and eventually bootpacking w/o crampons for the last few thousand vertical. Observed a 1' avvy crown to climber's left that appeared to have slid on Friday.
My buddy Caleb and I dropped in at about 9:30 for the descent. The first few turns were a bit icy but quickly softened up to perfectly smooth corn until just below the weather station where it got a bit mushy but still a lot of fun.
The debris from the avalanche photographed above:
Saw hundreds of climbers on the descent. Apparently they issued over 400 permits for Saturday and over 600 for Sunday. It was a zoo and we were glad to get out of there before things warmed up too much.
All in all it was an awesome spring corn day - much better than we expected given the forecast!
FWIW: I observed the 1 foot crown early in the morning Friday (8:00AM) from just above timberline -- so it seems like it might have slid earlier in the week.
what's the point of a Permit when they're issuing 500+ a day..?
author=davidG link=topic=24786.msg104726#msg104726 date=1337054186]
what's the point of a Permit when they're issuing 500+ a day..?
Revenue I imagine... but starting today they limit the permits to 100 climbers per day until October.
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