Conditions Report
Report from Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Mount St. Helens, Washington, may not be as big as it used to be, but it’s still a formidable PNW staple. I was excited to return to St. Helens after a wonderful, placid trip in 2023 and this Wednesday did not disappoint.
The route from Portland to the Marble Mountain Sno Park was bare and clear of trees. I departed the parking lot around 7:45 a.m., signing the climber’s book and heading through the forest. There was no snow in the parking lot and it took about a mile of carrying my skis before I felt comfortable with contiguous snow. It might have been possible to begin skinning around 0.75 miles out, but I thought I would save my skins for the summer.
The forest was shady and relatively icy snow for the first couple miles. During those covered miles, I noted that the canopy had a dusting of fresh snow in it. But once the trees started to abate it was blazingly bright and the summit was in plain view. By tree line, I had donned my floppy hat and applied sun screen.
When I hit the weather station around 6,000 feet, the wind started to increase. Looking at the summit, one could see telltale wisps of snow being curled in the air around the summit— signaling that it was breezy at the top. So I took my time ascending. Above 6,200 feet or so, the snow began to be very hard and iced over and my skins started to slide as the incline increased. I reached for my ski crampons but as I put them on— much to my dismay— I realized they didn’t fit the fancy new planks I’ve been touring on this season. I really love my DPS Pagoda Tour 112s, but my 102 crampon just won’t work on them. Looks like am now in the market for a new pair.
Rising above 6,500 feet, skinning with my axe for stability was proving taxing and slow. So I threw the skis on my back and started booting the final couple thousand feet. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate to bootpack, but it was definitely the right call. I passed at least a dozen folks struggling with their combinations of skins, poles, crampons, and ski crampons. The snow was not hard enough to require the real bite of a crampon but was too hard to give skin traction. Boots were just right.
I summited a little after noon. The wind had died down and I shared the summit only with a guy from Belgium who was doing a quick Western United States peak-bagging expedition. There were some caution posts around the cornice, which he asked about. I told him about the recent tragedy in which a snowboarder died and we held a silent moment for Roscoe Shorey. Then it was time to descend. The descent wasn’t quite prime. Above 7,000 feet, there were moments of wind-loaded glory, but it wasn’t consistent. The tiny amount of fresh snow from the night before froze weirdly, leaving crusty layers in seemingly random places. Then it turned to corny slush until it got sticky as I hit treeline.
Once back into the trees, it was classic spring skiing. A veritable combination of sticky sloosh and hard pack that made it easy to keep speed. I made it back to within a mile of the trailhead and carried my skis in hand the rest of the way back.
Weather Forecast
