Worm Flows on Mount Saint Helens

April 10, 2016

I'd been meaning to get up Saint Helens for years and just hadn't prioritized it when the conditions were right until this spring. Early April seemed like a perfect time to catch it, with good snow coverage and warm enough temperatures to generate some some corn for the descent.

Dan and I drove in the night before and got some sleep in the trailhead parking lot along with a couple hundred other folks with the same Sunday plans. We started moving at about 5:20am and made the wise decision to start in trail runners since the first mile or so of the trail was melted out or patchy snow. From there, it was icy, but doable skinning to tree line and then, when it got steeper, I switched to ski crampons. Most people were booting up with skis on their backs, which seemed strange to me—ski crampons worked great and didn't catch too badly as the snow started to soften. Regardless, we all enjoyed a great view, with Adams and Hood poking up out of a sea of clouds covering everything else below.

Knowing that it'd be icy until 11am or so, we took our time and made it to the top in about 4.5 hours. I scampered over to the "true summit" despite the mountain not really having a summit anymore (I've been told summits matter...), and then hung out with the crowd, eating my sandwich and waiting for the corn to ripen.

The ski down was glorious. There was enough open territory to find fresh tracks and nature's groomer had done wonders. We were back at the car in under an hour, including the walk out. The snow cover was great—with the low angle of the trail, we could just point straight down hill and be carried through the forest like a magic carpet ride. A truly lovely Sunday on my last big volcano in Washington.

*Skinning back to the ski area boundary*

White Salmon Glacier on Mount Shuksan

April 3, 2016

After a week of high pressure and with signs of spring all around Seattle, Kelsey and I were itching to get out into the mountains. We considered Whitehorse as a good early spring adventure, but eventually decided on the White Salmon Glacier on Shuksan instead. We thought about going car to car, but decided that a night at high camp with this weather would be lovely.

We left Seattle a bit before 9am on Saturday morning and were skinning from the White Salmon Lodge by about noon. In 15 minutes, we hit the clear cut and began skiing down heavy, wet snow next to the trees until hitting a section about halfway down that was too narrow and steep for us to ski, so we switched to booting and made our way down the dry forest in true PNW mountaineering fashion. I'd been there before while climbing the North Face in July of 2013, so the territory was moderately familiar.

Soon enough, we made it out of the trees and back onto snow, which quickly brought us to the gentle valley bottom. A few stream crossings and one more set of trees later brought us to the wide-open valley with massive wet slide avalanche debris from chutes on the Shuksan Arm. We crossed these at about 2pm and headed for the bottom of the White Salmon Glacier, rounding the turn at about 2:45pm.

We hadn't made a final call on camping location, but with that much time left to ascend about 2,500 feet, it made lots of sense to head up to the top of Winne's Slide. The snow was soft, but not concerning, and made for good skinning. We dispatched the vert pretty efficiently and were at Winnie's slide at about 5pm. After a quick boot up the face, we set about digging out a campsite next to a pair of other climbers who had arrived earlier in the day.

We enjoyed a brilliant sunset while cooking dinner and then promptly tucked ourselves in for bed at about 8pm with an alarm set for 4:30am. I'd pulled the bonehead move of stopping on the drive up to buy some Vias, but had forgotten to pack them, so we had no coffee to make the early wakeup more palatable. Thankfully it wasn't too cold and the skies were clear. We left camp at about 5:15am. I remembered the section from the summit pyramid down to the top of Hell's Highway as being prime for skiing, so we carried skies on our backs and booted our way in the darkness on firm snow.

An hour brought us through Hell's Highway and onto the Sulphide Glacier just as the sun was beginning to rise over The Pickets—it was gorgeous. We arrived at the base of the summit pyramid with the other party of two just ahead of us at 7am, just as Mount Baker was beginning to get lit up in pastels from the summit downwards.

When I'd originally climbed Shuksan via the Sulhide Glacier in 2011, we had stopped short of ascending the rimed-up summit pyramid, so this was my shot at redemption in wintry conditions. It turned out to be quite civil with a whippet and a light axe. The snow was very firm and took a few kicks per step, but was nice and secure. We were standing on the top by 7:30am, enjoying great visibility in the morning light.

We retraced our steps, including an icy ski from the base of the summit pyramid to the top of Hell's Highway, and were back at camp at 9:20am. The snow was still very firm and the sun was not yet hitting the White Salmon from what we could see, so we decided to take a nap before packing up and skiing down. Unfortunately, while the top 500 feet were icy, the bottom 2,500 feet was some of the worst concrete I've experienced in the mountains—our poles would plunge 2 feet into the slush and we each fell a half-dozen times with our ultralight, matchstick skis not helping matters. It was tough, but we eventually made it to the valley floor, back across the debris and streams, up through the forest, and back to the ski area at 2pm. It was an awesome early-season adventure despite the ski conditions on the way down.

Kelsey on steep snow near the thrilling final pitches

Northeast Couloir on Colchuck Peak

February 27, 2016

After many a recent weekend spent avoiding high avalanche danger and reducing ambition accordingly, it was pretty exciting to have a week of stable weather leading to a more consolidated snowpack. Kelsey and I searched all over for a decent forecast and the best we found was a 20% chance of snow for one day near Leavenworth. Good enough for us after weeks of cabin fever! We drove out after work on Friday night and bivvied in the car at the start of the closed road.

We started skinning up the road at about 5:15am. I had come down with a fever and cough the night before, so I wasn't moving at top speed, especially through the steeper terrain just below the lake. With some raindrops hitting us and not feeling awesome, thoughts of bailing ran through my head. After a little more than 4 hours from the car, we reached the lake where we took a break and ate some food. That helped quite a bit. The skin across the lake was a nice break from the vert we'd been gaining and got my mind back into a better place.

On our way up the moraine, we discovered that a pair of climbers booting up ahead of us were our friends Caitlyn and Craig—it's a small universe of people who do this kind of stuff for fun! We were floating on top of the deeper snow here and passed them on the way up. The snow changed from deeper and wetter below to windblown and icy above the moraine. We skinned up most of it, but eventually took the skis off to boot up the last bit. By this point, it was 11:15am, which was about 1.5 hours behind our optimistic estimated schedule.

We geared up there, putting skis on our packs and getting our harnesses and crampons on. We assumed that we'd solo up until the terrain got steep enough to warrant protection, which was the right call. The couloir was decently steep and had a few sections of firmer neve, but was mostly good snow with secure steps. Craig and Caitlyn joined our train and helped make faster progress. I hung out in the struggle bus back seat. Thanks for the steps, team!

We eventually made it to the lefthand cutoff and followed Craig up a steep snow section to a spot where it looked like a belay was prudent. I banged in a good pin for Kelsey and I here and then we hung out and waited for Craig and Caitlyn to finish up the route. Upon leaving the belay and making it across a steep snow flute, it was clear that we had made things harder for ourselves by sticking to the far-right wall—there was a vertical mixed step in our way.

We were able to get a cam and a pin below this step, so thankfully there was some protection in place because the snow wasn't holding steps well and had been kicked out a bit. I had a chi-centering moment after having a foot slip through the snow and almost taking a tumble. I was able to get a good stem in and take a few deep breaths as well as remove my glacier glasses which were covered in spindrift. After that point, it was still pretty tenuous with nothing for the tools to grip on, but I was able to stem my way up to the steep snow above.

I clipped a pin above the crux and then, when I sensed Kelsey simul-climbing through the crux, buried two t-slotted pickets as deep as I could get them. Beyond that, I just kept the rope tight to help keep her balanced in case her foot popped too. She made it through and we cruised up the last hundred feet or so to the summit ridge. A quick jaunt up from there, we tagged the summit at 4pm. Most of the climb had gone quickly, but going in serial up this last bit that was harder than expected took a good while. Thankfully we had skis!

We went down windblown crust to the Colchuck Col, skied down mashed potatoes with a breakable crust on the glacier (my absolute least favorite ski conditions), skinned across the lake, and started down the trail right around dark. We quickly realized that skinning down the tight trail through trees in the dark was ill-advised, so we A-framed the skis and began plunge stepping. The rest was just like every other trip I've done back there—long and painful, but hey, it must be good enough in aggregate that I keep coming back, right?