April 22, 2018, Mount Saint Helens SW route

Intrigued by the post about approaching St Helens from Redrock pass, we set off that way. The road was gated and locked at the Cougar Sno-Park as expected, but some sledders getting back Saturday afternoon assured us that solid snow was only a few hundred foot walk past the barrier.

We started early with a large group and trudged the roughly 3 miles to just before Redrock pass. We skied up a gentle drainage, to the E and parallel the lava flow that reaches the pass, and re-found snowmobile tracks which took us to the large clearing visible on satellite photos about 1/2 mile north of the pass. From there, the tracks led us into a beautiful gully which continued to treeline. From there, we worked slightly right and skinned directly to the Dryer glacier and summit. There were a few people traversing over from the top of Worm Flows but it wasn't very crowded. We heard a group of sledders come up around 10 am, but they went out of sight to the W and didn't seem to venture above 4500'. There were some older tracks leading directly up our ascent route to the summit, as well as on our descent route. Luckily not too many to make a mess of the slope. Are they allowed up there?

We skied down at 1:40 pm and enjoyed great smooth snow off the summit and down a succession of bowls on the more SW aspect, W of the Dryer glacier remnant. There was some newer snow up top that was slightly grabby, which transitioned to something resembling corn lower down, never becoming too sticky. The sno-mo luge track was easy to follow if a little slow due to softer snow. The road was slower still, but lots of poling and herringbone brought us to nearly within sight of the car.

Dafna's GPS read 7.2 miles one way!

Fun outing on a new side of the mountain for me.