April 15, 2007, Mt St Helens

Despite unfavorable weather forecasts, skiing on Mt St Helens was quite sunny and awesome this weekend.

Because of the long drive from seattle, we opted for overnight camping at the base of the wormflows route. The snow began 100 feet from the parking lot, but there were a few short carries along the trail. The snow was pretty thin for the first mile, so I doubt it will last much longer.

Broke out of the woods to great views of the mountain. Perfect sun baked slopes, but there was wind and clouds developing. Went past a large Boy scout camp and found a nice wind protected campsite at the bottom of the wormflow. After setting up camp, it was time for some turns. Clouds were now enveloping the summit. Skinned up the wormflow to perhaps 6000 feet and into howling wind, cold temps and ice pellets in the face...Owwww. Skied down on nasty breakable crust. Double Owwww. The final 1000 feet into camp was softer corny like stuff and quite skiable. So went for another lap, but the cold temps and wind had turned it to breakable crust. Ugh.

Awoke Sunday morning to fog, cold temps, and hard crusty snow, but no wind. Yeah!!! By 7:30 when we started up, the fog was thinning and moods improving. Finally broke into the sun around 6000 feet. The fog kept moving up and down, but eventually we were in the sun for good. There were many people on the route. Basically a continuous stream of people on the boot track. But everyone was in a good mood. A varietable party atmosphere. The snow remained hard all the way up, but there were good steps to hike in.

The summit was quite crowded with perhaps 100 or more people at any given time. Couldn't see into the crater without going out onto the big cornice. Some people belayed each other for a look and others just risked it, but no one fell in. I went lookers left and found a low spot where I could get a look at the lava dome. Definitely had the sea of clouds effect with nice views of adams, hood, and rainer.

Didn't get first tracks, oh my....Some 30 or 40 skiers went before my group...and also a dog beat me to it. The final 800 feet was rather wind-effected with pockets of powder in between. There were several spectacular crashes as skiers hit various wind nasties, but it was quite skiable if one turned in the powder pockets. The big bowl above the worm flows was quite nice windpack. Quite edgeable and smooth. Then nice corn in the wormflow itself. Yeah!!!! And I was worried that it would never soften. Also the fog had mostly cleared on the lower mountain for good vis on the ski out.

All and all, an awesome weekend.

Pictures to be posted later.