Katie, Marissa, and I made the long drive down from Seattle on Saturday evening with nervous anticipation for what was bound to be a fun but challenging adventure the following day. I always seem to forget how far south you need to drive to get to the St. Helen’s climbing routes. We eventually pulled into the Marble Mountain Sno-Park at around 10 pm. The road was perfectly dry and clear all the way to the lot (FYI you need a Sno-Parks Permit to park here in the winter) and we wasted no time getting ready to sleep in the parking lot. Katie and Marissa slept in the car while I pitched a tent on the asphalt of the lot. The last time we did this was a week before climbing permits were needed (after April 1st in 2022) so this parking lot was packed. This time it wasn’t nearly as full, which we were thankful for. Later we realized that this was probably because it was Super Bowl Sunday.
The three of us started up at 5:11 am, which was an hour earlier than last time we had we had climbed St. Helen's. We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to move at our own pace and beat the clouds that were supposed to move in in the afternoon.
The first few miles of skinning were uneventful, just moving steadily by headlamp through the forest. It is just steep enough here to ski uninterrupted on the way out, so you gain elevation slowly. There is something quite unique about slowly gliding through a dark, snowy, silent forest just by the light of your headlamp.
The first landmark is when you emerge from the trees to a large open area near Chocolate Falls. This is a perfect place to take a break, drink and eat, and admire the view of the climb ahead. St. Helens rises in front of you, and you’ll probably think “WOW, we still have to go all the way up there?” If you time it right, you might get lucky enough to see the sunrise casting pink glow on the south-facing slopes. Turn around and you will see the silhouette of Mount Hood in the morning light.
Now the real work began. We crossed Chocolate Falls (don’t stray too far to the left off the skin track, it’s quite a way down!) and continued through the relatively flat snowfields until the slope steepened. At this point the sun was really starting to shine. It was a beautiful golden hour and starting to warm up, so spirits were high.
The winter of 2022 was a weird one, with seemingly long stretches of warm weather and little snowfall. (Followed by one of the coldest and snowiest April’s in recent memory). This made for interesting conditions that exposed the rocks of the lava flows...making it very clear why this is called the Worm Flows Route. This was very different than when we had skied St. Helen’s the year prior. It was later in the year, but the snow coverage was much more robust. The choice was clear to take the skis off, strap them to our backpacks, and put crampons on for the ascent. This was much more efficient, and we saw people who tried to power through with their skins struggling amongst the rocks.
Progress was slow as we inched our way up the wide-open snowy slope. There were minor rises and crests on the obvious route that led to logical break spots, and it helped mentally to split up the climb this way. We certainly weren’t alone on the mountain that day. In fact, there was a line of climbers stretching out like ants towards the summit. But it was nothing like the previous year, which was easily the most crowded mountain experience I have ever had. We attributed the relative solace to the fact that it was Super Bowl Sunday. This year felt much more like an adventure.
After what felt like forever, we finally crested the final summit ridge. Here we observed a strange phenomenon in the snow. There were massive cracks in the snowpack, almost reminiscent of crevasses you would see in the summer. The cracks occurred on a convex part of the slope and had the deep blue color on the interior like a crevasse. My first thought was that they were massive glide cracks, or that they were crevasses in the dying Swift Glacier. Regardless, we took care stepping over the cracks and continued with the summit in sight now.
At this point the snow was getting fairly icy and wind effected, so we made the decision to drop our skis on a flat spot on the ridge and make the short trip up to the summit and back. It had been a while before we had carried this kind of weight up 5000 feet, so our tired legs thanked us for this decision. From where we dropped our gear to the crater rim was only about 5 or 10 minutes.
The view from the crater rim of St. Helen’s never fails to take my breath away. It is pretty awe-inspiring to see the force with which one half of the mountain was simply blown away. I love looking at the complex crater walls, with the striking contrast between the black and red rocks and white snow. I also love looking out at the deep blue of Spirit Lake, with one side still clogged with dead trees from the eruption. It is a stark and beautiful landscape. Mount Rainier and Adams both look massive and snowy from the summit, it is quite a lot to take in. Just make sure to stay far away from the crater rim and the massive cornice that forms there every winter and spring.
After we had soaked in the views, reveled in the windless weather and sunny day, and taken the requisite summit pictures of the three of us in our bucket hats, it was time to saunter back to our skis and splitboard waiting for us shortly below the summit. After a short break to prepare our legs for the thousands of feet of skiing ahead, we strapped in and started down!
The first bit of skiing getting off the ridge and onto the Swift Glacier was actually a bit hairy. It was a fairly steep side hill, and the snow wasn’t very supportive, so I had to do a bit of slip sliding on my snowboard to get down. Some people were skiing directly east from the summit and onto the glacier, which seemed like it was probably the better option. Once we were on the broad snowfield, though, we had a few thousand feet of amazing turns. The snow felt very much like spring corn snow and it’s a very freeing feeling to be gliding down a massive volcano.
We did run into a bit of difficulty on the descent due to the low snow coverage. We decided to stay closer to the climbing route on our descent than we had last year because we weren’t sure what our descent route from the previous year was looking like coverage-wise. This decision came back to bite us. There was an area of exposed volcanic rock that we hit that we could seemingly not get past. It forced us to take our skis off and route find our way through the maze of rock before we could find fully skiable terrain. This area (from about 5400 to 4400 feet west of the main climbing route) was a pain physically, but mostly mentally, and we were glad to be through it. I believe this area would have been much better with more snow coverage, but I would highly recommend descending to the east of the climbing route.
After that debacle, we were all a little burnt out and tired and agreed that we would make a beeline for the parking lot. We took care as we navigated our way past Chocolate Falls and then zoomed down the forest trail. It is perfectly graded and plenty wide to ski, even on a snowboard. There were only a few short sections of ups and downs near the end that I had to unstrap for, but they were inconsequential. My back leg was burning as we navigated the woods, but we made it back to the cars before we knew it. It was another successful St. Helens summit and ski, and despite our bit of route-finding difficulties on the descent, was a very positive experience! I’ll never forget the sunrise hitting the mountain in the morning, the beautiful views we had all day, the good company, and the amazing skiing to be had on the upper mountain.
Some lessons learned from this trip up St. Helen's skiing:
Go when snow coverage is good and stay to skiers left of the climbing route on the descent. We were burned a bit by the low snow and exposed rocks which made route-finding more difficult than it should have been.
Don’t plan on skinning the entire mountain if you don't have ski crampons. Every time that I have done St. Helen's in the winter the snow has been too hard and icy in places to skin without at least ski crampons. I find it easier and more efficient to bring mountaineering boots and crampons and walk with my splitboard on my back.
Don’t underestimate the physical challenge. It is easy (at least for me) to underestimate St. Helen’s. It is a big mountain with a lot of gain. And skiing for 5000 feet if you aren’t used to it is a challenge too!
Start early. You will want the snow to soften for your descent, but we still found it important to get a nice early start. It allowed us to not feel rushed and built in some contingency time. The snow was still nice and soft for us on our descent.
Final Stats: 11 miles / 6393 feet of gain
Comments