The second weekend of May is typically one of the busiest times to climb Mt. St. Helens because it is just before the 100 climber per day quota goes into effect on May 15th. Prior to that day, there is no limit on how many climbers can ascend MSH. The last two years, I had thoughts of climbing St. Helens on the Mother's Day weekend, but the weather was never cooperative. This year, with the forecast to be sunny and the warmest weekend so far in 2012, and with no prior commitments, I asked for and was granted permission by my wonderful wife to climb.
I saw there were a number of openings for Mazama climbs over the weekend, but the only climb on Saturday was Greg Wilmarth's climb. If I want my marriage to last, I am certainly not going to climb on Mother's Day. Though, the thought of climbing Mt. St. Helens on Mother's Day in a dress in honor of our mothers, as many people do, did go through my mind.
Greg wanted to get an early start because of an elevated avalanche danger. He decided to meet at 5:00am at the Marble Mountain Trailhead and start the climb by 5:30. While some members of the team camped out at the trailhead, since I live in Vancouver, I drove up the morning of the climb. I arrived at the trailhead at 4:30, met the team at 5, and after introductions and a brief team meeting, we hit the trail at 5:29am.
The first thousand feet of the climb is basically a hike up cross country ski trails. The snow was hard enough to where we did not need snowshoes and is not steep enough to need crampons. We ascended the 1,000 feet in about an hour taking a few short breaks to delayer. It was somewhere in the second hour of the climb that I realized that I had forgotten to put up my Northwest Forest Pass in my window. Of course I was not going to turn around at that point, I just hoped that there would not be a parking ticket by the USFS awaiting my return.
It did not take long for us to get out of the trees and to see our first views of Mt. St. Helens basking in the morning light. At around 4,000 feet, we came across a flat area where there were about 10 tents set up and numerous people, many of whom were already wearing their Mother's Day dresses , were getting ready for their climb. We stopped there to put on our sunscreen, crampons, and to eat a snack.
We continued upwards and we could clearly see specks in the distance that were other climbers going up the mountain. Because of all the people climbing and because we had a period of nice weather, we had plenty of footsteps to follow and very few new kick steps to create.
The weather warmed up pretty quickly, but we kept pushing upwards. The snow was softening up which made crampon travel a little harder, but we continued to make good time despite our pace slowing down. Unlike Mt. Adams where there is one "false summit" to attack, Mt. St. Helens seemed to have multiple false summits. We would ascend a section thinking that this was it, only to see another section slightly steeper than the last, and this happened over and over until we finally got to 8,200 feet where we saw our last push off to our northeast. Though we were all getting tired, we slogged through the last hill and reached the summit at 11:45am - 6 hours and 15 minutes after we started.
We took a break at the summit. A forest ranger who we had seen on our last push to the top warned us all of the dangers of the cornices and told us not to get to close to the crater rim. Of course we listened to her advice and stayed away from the edge even though it prevented us from having a clear view of the crater itself. But, we did have great views of Mt. Rainier to the north, Mt. Adams to the southeast, Mt. Hood to the south, and Mt. Jefferson way off in the distance behind Hood. After taking our summit photos and eating our lunch, we put away our crampons and put on our nylon pants and garbage bags for our glissade down.
Despite the softening snow, we still had great glissading conditions. Previous climbers had already created solid glissade paths so we just followed those all the way down to tree line. When all was said and done, we had glissaded down about 4,000 feet. It is remarkable how it takes hours of climbing to gain the elevation only to lose it in a few short minutes. We got of our glissade gear and since the snow was so soft, we put on the snowshoes to finish our hike out to the trailhead. We arrived back at the cars slightly after 4:00pm and I did the "happy dance" when I saw that there was no parking ticket on my windshield.
It was a great climb overall. The most challenging part of this climb is the amount of elevation gained. It is 5,500 feet from the Marble Mountain Trailhead (winter route) to the summit. But it is a good conditioning climb. I'd highly recommend climbing during the "winter conditions" because of opportunity to glissade at the end. And, regardless of your gender, don't forget to wear your dress if you climb on Mother's Day in honor of your mothers, the mother of your children, and those who have been like a mother to you.
All of my Mt. St. Helen's photos can be seen here:
Mt St Helens Climb Photos
