June 5, 2003, St. Helens (via 'Grand Canal')
6/5/03
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2148
0
Went up via a nonstandard approach route which I'll call the "Grand Canal" due to its most outstanding feature.
Pros of using this route: Peace and quiet, as compared to the Monitor Ridge Tollway. Adventure, routefinding, and partial recapture of the wilderness experience of climbing a mountain, as opposed to following 1000 bootmarks in the snow. Direct access to a more fall-line oriented slope of the mountain, as opposed to Monitor where you are compelled to try and stay on the less than optimal ridge, at least at the end.
Cons: it is about 1.5 miles longer and 700ft lower than starting at Climbers Bivouac. That's probably enough to deter most people rigt there, but if you're intrigued read on.
Description: Start at Red Rock Pass trailhead, on FS Road 81 (this is about 2 miles past the Bivouac turn off, you go straight instead of left.) Go N on the trail that starts there, but leave the trail in less than 100 yds by crossing to right edge of the obvious lava flow, where you'll pick up some kind of old trail that actually starts from just below the pass. Head N on this trail for less than a mile until you encounter a blue-marker slightly overgrown snowmobile trail. Turn R on this trail and go about 1/3 mile until the trail crosses a big mudflat. Leave the markers and head N upstream in the incipient creek. You'll notice that as you go on, the walls get steeper and soon you're in an odd chute with walls up to 50 feet high. This is the eponymous "Canal", a mudflow route of both ancient and recent times, and will serve as your 'trail' all the way until treeline, at least 2 miles farther. There are occasional rocks,logs and waterfalls, but by and large running up this streambed is pretty easy going as opposed to thrashing the brush, reminescent of hiking in the desert SW, and added bonus of some interesting geology underfoot. As you emerge from the canal around treeline you'll see that the canal is basically the extended drainage for the divide that falls between the two commonly considered summit of St Helens (top of Monitor, and the slightly higher one W). From here on you can go just about any way up you choose, so use it as an opportunity to scout the descent of any of the many ridges, faces or draws that all can be accessed from this point. A great way to scope this trip is look at Terraserver, it shows you all the trails and features needed to put this together: (http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=13&x=351&y=3194&z=10&w=2 . Red Rock Pass road, incipient trails, the mudflat [look @ middle left], and the Canal are all quite visible in this imagery, and you can change to topo view to make sense of where you are.)
Report for this trip specifically: if you hit this right time of the year, the Canal also holds snow longer than surroundings, and can thus serve as a great extender of snow time on the descent, plus is occasionally a righteous natural half pipe. But not this time, too late. About a month earlier would have been good. Should time this for when Red Rock Pass is blocked by snow just beyond, and FSR 81 not even officially open. Snow started at about treeline. Good snow for boot up, but I was up maybe 2 hours too late for optimum softening on descent, early bird gets the corn. Snow was very grabby, and small sluffs on the occasional steeper than 40 degree headwall. Higher mountain snow was mysteriously littered with molted greyjay feathers and wayward flying ants, and of course plenty of base grinding pumice. Saw probably 20 people over on the Monitor route in the distance, some of them skiing. When the wind was blowing, temperatures were pleasant, otherwise it was awful warm, and buggy in morning below treeline. The snow was actually better/less grabby between 7 and 5 K, something about the wind or air was causing a sort of inversion and not messing up the snow as much. When conditions are right I think this is my favorite run in the state, but it was just too warm this time to be optimal. Still fun, but in the warm conditions you are spending too much time in the fall line gaining speed, not enjoying the turns as much. 6 hours up 3 hours down 5500 VF 4000+ skiable.
Pros of using this route: Peace and quiet, as compared to the Monitor Ridge Tollway. Adventure, routefinding, and partial recapture of the wilderness experience of climbing a mountain, as opposed to following 1000 bootmarks in the snow. Direct access to a more fall-line oriented slope of the mountain, as opposed to Monitor where you are compelled to try and stay on the less than optimal ridge, at least at the end.
Cons: it is about 1.5 miles longer and 700ft lower than starting at Climbers Bivouac. That's probably enough to deter most people rigt there, but if you're intrigued read on.
Description: Start at Red Rock Pass trailhead, on FS Road 81 (this is about 2 miles past the Bivouac turn off, you go straight instead of left.) Go N on the trail that starts there, but leave the trail in less than 100 yds by crossing to right edge of the obvious lava flow, where you'll pick up some kind of old trail that actually starts from just below the pass. Head N on this trail for less than a mile until you encounter a blue-marker slightly overgrown snowmobile trail. Turn R on this trail and go about 1/3 mile until the trail crosses a big mudflat. Leave the markers and head N upstream in the incipient creek. You'll notice that as you go on, the walls get steeper and soon you're in an odd chute with walls up to 50 feet high. This is the eponymous "Canal", a mudflow route of both ancient and recent times, and will serve as your 'trail' all the way until treeline, at least 2 miles farther. There are occasional rocks,logs and waterfalls, but by and large running up this streambed is pretty easy going as opposed to thrashing the brush, reminescent of hiking in the desert SW, and added bonus of some interesting geology underfoot. As you emerge from the canal around treeline you'll see that the canal is basically the extended drainage for the divide that falls between the two commonly considered summit of St Helens (top of Monitor, and the slightly higher one W). From here on you can go just about any way up you choose, so use it as an opportunity to scout the descent of any of the many ridges, faces or draws that all can be accessed from this point. A great way to scope this trip is look at Terraserver, it shows you all the trails and features needed to put this together: (http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=13&x=351&y=3194&z=10&w=2 . Red Rock Pass road, incipient trails, the mudflat [look @ middle left], and the Canal are all quite visible in this imagery, and you can change to topo view to make sense of where you are.)
Report for this trip specifically: if you hit this right time of the year, the Canal also holds snow longer than surroundings, and can thus serve as a great extender of snow time on the descent, plus is occasionally a righteous natural half pipe. But not this time, too late. About a month earlier would have been good. Should time this for when Red Rock Pass is blocked by snow just beyond, and FSR 81 not even officially open. Snow started at about treeline. Good snow for boot up, but I was up maybe 2 hours too late for optimum softening on descent, early bird gets the corn. Snow was very grabby, and small sluffs on the occasional steeper than 40 degree headwall. Higher mountain snow was mysteriously littered with molted greyjay feathers and wayward flying ants, and of course plenty of base grinding pumice. Saw probably 20 people over on the Monitor route in the distance, some of them skiing. When the wind was blowing, temperatures were pleasant, otherwise it was awful warm, and buggy in morning below treeline. The snow was actually better/less grabby between 7 and 5 K, something about the wind or air was causing a sort of inversion and not messing up the snow as much. When conditions are right I think this is my favorite run in the state, but it was just too warm this time to be optimal. Still fun, but in the warm conditions you are spending too much time in the fall line gaining speed, not enjoying the turns as much. 6 hours up 3 hours down 5500 VF 4000+ skiable.
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