Mt St Helens Ski

Mt St Helens (8,333ft)

The view after breaking out from the clouds

Eric Gilbertson

May 1, 2018

I left town Monday evening and slept in the car at the trailhead that night. I woke up at sunrise and was moving around 6am. Snow still goes all the way to the trailhead, but this is likely that last week before you need to do some walking. I skinned up, soon breaking out of the trees. I ascended above an undercast and got great views to the south. Eventually the sun went back in the clouds, and the snow turned icy, so I had to switch to crampons.

On the summit in a whiteout

A whiteout set in as I caught up to and passed one other skier ascending. He was headed toward the false summit, but I went directly to the true summit. I had to navigate by GPS, but crested the top at 10am. There was no view. I could barely see my skis on my feet. After eating a quick piece of pizza I carefully skied back down. After about 1000ft I found my up tracks, and

started making turns down. Around 6500ft I was below the whiteout, and saw a handful of other skiers skiing up.

Lower down I was again in a whiteout, but soon reached the trees and was back to the car about an hour after leaving the summit. I made it back to Seattle by 2:30pm, enough to get a bit of work done at the end of the day. It was a fun 5,300ft ski descent.