7 miles of hiking • 5500' elevation gain •
Jon, Shane, Kevin, & I took Thursday off to climb Mt. Saint Helens. We picked up our permits right at 6am, and started hiking at 7:10 after a casual preparation in the parking lot at Marble Mountain Snopark. The weather turned out perfect—mostly blue skies with a random assortment of lower clouds to add interest to the views. We took only one real break at roughly 5300', and then pushed on to make the summit by 11:45.
It was so beautiful on the summit, sunny and windless, that we hung out for over an hour eating and basking. I was the only one who carried up a sliding device—my neglected snowboard—and was incredibly excited to start the descent at around 1:15. The corn snow was absolutely perfect for snowboarding, and I had an incredible amount of fun riding next to friends glissading and making huge turns in the untouched snow. I was able to ride down the whole mountain except for the last three quarters of a mile to the lot.
We all made it back to the car by about 3:30. Awesome first trip up Saint Helens.
Comments
Kyle Meyer
June 9, 2011
I carried microspikes and an ice axe but used neither of them. I hiked up in my snowboarding boots with trekking poles, and down with my snowboard. No rangers.
Eric Peterson
June 9, 2011
Sweet, thanks. I think right now the no Rangers thing makes sense as most of the days during the week don't even get full so there's not the 100 a day anyway, looks like the days are mostly full in July and August though...
Water (Matt)
June 9, 2011
just because i always do.. but f the rangers, the permits, and MSHI. MSHI makes $50,000-65,000 each year off the mandatory $5 donation that is folded into the permits. Ostensibly for maintenance to the 'trail'. What a ruse! After 8 years of that one would expect a geo-thermal powered tow rope.
Chris
June 10, 2011
Only 7 miles, eh? I guess glissading doesn't count as hiking :)
Eric Peterson
June 10, 2011
Which one of you is the earbuds guy?
Sorry, had to . . .
Water (Matt)
June 10, 2011
haha
Kyle Meyer
June 11, 2011
Hahaha.
Chris: Only 7 miles because I was snowboarding 5 of the 6 back down :)
Eric Peterson
June 12, 2011
That video is crazy funny. Did Charley really have a part in that? Or is that just to stir the pot some more, heh. BTW, I have a knack for stirring things almost whenever I make a blog style post, where as in a forum setting I'm way more conservative. :D
Kyle Meyer
June 13, 2011
I think I should have added Charley to the "screenplay" credit! But no, he didn't have any part in it. I just wanted to make light of the whole thing since he was so serious.
It's interesting to note that in this Q&A thread, he talks about how they turned around before making the summit due to 5" of corn snow on top of the consolidated base. He calls those avalanche conditions, and I call them ideal snowboarding conditions. His party left two hours before us, stopped 1000' short of the summit, and got passed by people actually having fun. No wonder he was a crankpot.
Eric Peterson
June 13, 2011
Oh, saw Charley listed in the credits is why I asked... heh :)
Eric Peterson
June 9, 2011
Cool, I almost went today as well, but still recovering from a weird temporary joint problem. BTW, did you see any Rangers checking for permits? And did you need crampons and axe?