We went in when it was still winter, and came out in the spring. Four of us, Cheryl, Dave, Gino and I, went down to Mt. Saint Helens Friday and parked in the Marble Mountain Snow Park. It was the last time that you could get a permit to climb without paying. The road to the Climbers Bivouac is closed. We did the winter route (Worms Flow Glacier Route). You do have to pay for the Snow-Park permit, or use a golden age pass. The trail was snow almost from the parking lot. We hiked about 3.25 miles to our at 4600 feet. The snow was in good shape and the sky was clear. There was wind roaring Friday night, but the temperatures were not much below freezing. We were up at seven and left camp for the summit at about 8 AM. The snow was still frozen and climbers who started earlier had kicked steps (thank you very much). Micro-Spikes worked well here. Clear sunny weather with strong wind gusts below and gale force winds at the summit. Dave and Gino summited in 3.5 hours and Cheryl and I were a half-hour behind them. We ran into Paul Nelson, Ron Jackson and Tess Pennington on our way down. They had started from the trailhead that morning. Ron will probably report on their trip later. We had a little trouble glissading at the summit, but shortly thereafter we got in a series of great glissades that took us all the way down to within 200 feet of our camp. What a day, what a spectacular view. Lots of board riders and skiers having fun carving turns down in the wind packed snow.
It wasn’t until after breaking camp that the snow began to soften and those who brought snowshoes got to use them effectively. When we arrived in the parking lot at 4:05 PM there was a contingent of sheriff cars and mountain rescue people mucking about. A lady skier had injured herself and today (Sunday) we learned was later evacuated to safety. Note to Fred Becky: The guide is wrong. Mt. St. Helens is not 9677’ but rather 8365”
Jim Morrison
- The trees offered protection from the strong wind (ha, ha!).
- Mt St Helens 2010 camp.JPG (56.66 KiB) Viewed 252 times
- Beautiful, beautiful snow. A whole mountain of it!
- Mt St Helens 2010 from camp.JPG (38.59 KiB) Viewed 252 times
