March 30. 2013, St Helens corn

I talked to Silas on the phone on my drive down, learning it had been mushy for a fair stretch on Friday, and that he'd left the summit at 2PM and it had been cloudy and a bit rainy the night before. With a clear Friday night, I hoped for a bit of freezing on the mountain, and sure enough, freeze it did. I also got an early-ish start, hitting the trail at about 6:20. And I only did standing stops for quick refueling and drinking on the way up.

It was a pretty and clear morning.


I kept my skis on for the ascent, and found ski crampons to be helpful on the upper mountain, as I was only getting a small bit of ski penetration. I watched multiple other skinners falling to their knees and so forth from slipping out. I was surprised (and happy) that I was already at the summit at about 10:40. Nice views all around, and I found a safe vantage point for peeking into the crater, including seeing the steam venting away.


Having never been up there before, I hung around for a half hour to enjoy it a bit, but didn't want to dawdle, as the corn fuse was burning. And it was sweet sweet corn right from the top! I found it useful to have an "inverse powder nose," seeking the slopes that had not sheltered deeper pockets of powder from the last snowfall. Which yielded thousands of feet of the sort of corn turns that leave shallow prints with the wake spraying far off to the side. In this photo, you can see how my turns today compared to the tracks from yesterday (mine are down the center, yesterday's tracks off to either side with pinwheels coming off them):
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Toward the bottom of the alpine, there were some slightly deeper wetter spots, but still excellent skiing, with it just getting a little tough to avoid glop as I reached the flats. Whereas it payed to avoid prior tracks on the upper mountain, I found it best to ride the postholed snow on the trail back to the lot, which made for a nice easy cruiser for the bottom 1.3K.

Days like today remind me of how much I love living here. And what a contrast from face shots in bottomless cold powder a week + 1 day ago at Yodelin!