Mt. St. Helens - Private Climb (05/04/13)

Having climbed Mt. St. Helens as a Mazama climb last year, I thought it would be fun to return to the mountain for a private climb.  It would be a great way to get some conditioning in for other climbs this year.  My plan was to organize a group of people to climb MSH in the first good weather weekend prior to the May 15th cutoff when the 100 climber per day quota goes into effect.  Though there were 7 or 8 people initially interested in climbing MSH, when all was said and done, there were just three us.  Beth and Kat, both of whom were graduates of Andrew Bodien's BCEP group this year, and me.  Beth and Kat graciously agreed to pick up my permit the night before as they were going to camp out at the Marble Mountain Sno-Park, while I was going to drive up early in the morning.  With warm weather predicted, we decided that a 5:30am meet time at the Sno-Park would be ideal.

Earmuff Snake climbed MSH three days prior and she gave me all the beta in terms of snow conditions.  Plus, she left me with good kick steps and glissade chutes, at least that's what she said she did.  She started at 7am and got back to her car at 3:00pm.  Though I did not expect to make the round trip in 8 hours, I was aiming to beat the time from my Mazama climb of St. Helens last year of about 11 hours.

I arrived at the trailhead at about 5:15am.  Beth and Kat were already packing up their tent.  We agreed that we probably would not need crampons since it was 44 degrees at the trailhead, but we brought them anyway just in case.  We also decided that we would need snowshoes based on my climb last year in similar conditions and on Earmuff Snake's observations from her climb earlier in the week.  And, of course we had our ice axe and all the gear we would need for a successful climb.

By the time we were situated, it was 5:50 am.  We started up the trail.  The first 1,400 feet to the Loowit Trail intersection is a gradual incline.  It took a full two hours to get to the Loowit Trail because the snow was already soft since it did not freeze overnight.  We were joined by a lot of climbers and downhill skiers hoping for good backcountry runs.

Above 4,000 feet, the incline increased.  We crossed over a ridge of rocks and then continued our climb up at about a pace of 1,000 feet per hour.  At that point, my co-worker, Jonathan, and his wife, who started their climb at 7am, passed us which is kind of demoralizing considering that we got over an hour head start on them.  But, we continued up.  The winds were very strong blowing out of the east around 30 mph with an occasional gust to 40 miles per hour.  Fighting to keep balance and push forward through the wind was energy consuming.  But, the weather was sunny and we had nice views of Mt. Adams to our east and Mt. St. Helens to our south to make the climb at least somewhat enjoyable.  We took a few breaks along the way.   Beth and Kat were the speedsters of the group and I was struggling to keep up, but I kept a steady pace and the other two did not seem to be annoyed by the slower pace due to the baby weight from my son's birth last spring that I still have not lost.

The last hill that starts at about 7,300 feet all the way up to the rim was the toughest just because so much energy had already been expended.  We saw ahead of us a long line of people on the boot bath heading to the rim.  We finally summitted at just after noon.  I counted about 75 people on the rim itself when we arrived.  A ranger who kept pace with us throughout the climb estimated there were 300 people out climbing Mt. St. Helens.

Once at the summit, we took pictures and ate lunch.  The cornices were not as scary as last year, but of course, I was careful not to get to close to the edge.  We saw some steam coming out of the crater which I thought was neat and had nice views of Mt. Rainier to our northeast.  After eating our lunch and taking some photos, we prepared our glissade gear and headed down the mountain.  Since it was so warm, the glissade chutes had soften up, but we still had good enough paths to get down quickly.  Our last glissade took us to nearly the 4,000 foot level where we intersected with the Loowit Trail.  At that point, we put on the snowshoes and then trudged our way pack to the car arriving at 4:05pm.  10 hours and 15 minutes was definitely an improvement from last year, but I would still like to increase my climbing speed to get down to that 8 hours.  I said my goodbyes to Beth and Kat and headed home for a nice steak dinner.

I've decided that I'm going to try climbing MSH every year prior to May 15th for the conditioning.  MSH is a simple, straightforward climb as long as you are in good physical condition for the 5,500 foot ascent, and that you have the appropriate gear (crampons, snowshoes, etc.).

See the complete photo album here:  Mt. St. Helens photos