Alec, at the end of his first season of touring, was flying in from Salt Lake City for a week of the amazing Washington spring skiing I had told him so much about, but there was a problem. Winter wouldn’t turn off, and we were receiving alternating hot/cold storms that always came with substantial precipitation - whether that be in the form of snow or just rain. Alec learned this firsthand when we took a quick fresh-off-the-plane day-trip to snoqualmie amid one of the warmer storm cycles, and witnessed a sizeable D3 avalanche rip down Great Scott Bowl in the Alpental valley and run almost to Source Lake. I was determined to show Alec how fun corn skiing on volcanoes coud be, and not scare him off of Washington skiing for good, and a tiny weather window for our permit day on St. Helen’s promised to do just that.
We talked the day prior and decided rather than figure out some jank sleeping situation in my too-small CR-V at the trailhead, we would sleep at my apartment and wake up early, making the three and a half hour drive in the morning. Sleeping in a warm bed is, after all, the Salt Lake way. We slept through our alarms and hit the road late, eventually getting ourselves on snow around 7am.
We started off with a fast pace. It was crowded, and we passed a lot of parties as we made our way through the icy trees. When things opened up near tree-line, we hopped on the ridge and joined the hoard moving towards the summit. We were able to keep our skis on through a rocky section and stay on the ridge where other parties had to gain a ridge further west. Because of this, we enjoyed far thinner crowds for most of our ascent.
We moved fast, and enjoyed clear-cloudless skies once we rose above the inversion layer. In classic Washington style, it was awesome to be above the clouds, with only other volcanoes poking out from the sea of grey below. We moved up to the upper slopes just below the crater, and were able to keep our skis on, making our progress quick and efficient. It had been a while since I’d been on Helen’s (at least in spring), and I forgot what it was like to be on a mountain with so many new skiers. I put a skintrack up the steep slope before the last headwall and watched a number of skiers cheese the kickturns, blowing out the corners and sliding down the slope. Thankfully Alec can hang.
Just as we were climbing the last slope to the crater, our skins started to glop hard. Wet, sun cooked snow began to stick to the bottoms of our skis so badly that my skis easily became twice the weight. The tracks we left behind looked less like a skin track and more like a boot pack, as most of the snow was glopping under our feet. We pushed on, as the summit was just in sight, and dragged our heavy skis up the last bit to the crater.
On the summit, we enjoyed the views, ate a snack, and quickly made our transition for the down. The cornice that comes in every year along the crater was extra large this year, making views down into the crater extra challenging. We hurried through the transition, listening to a skier explain to another summit-goer about how he was on mushrooms and was particularly worried about what he might see in the trees below. When the sober person joked that they might encounter a friendly big foot, the mushroom man got stern all of a sudden, and replied, “No man, I’ve had a big foot fuck with me before. It was not cool.”
The mushroom man took a stylistic photo of Alec and I on the summit, and we clicked in and skied off. The snow up high was excellent, and got even better as we skied east and hopped onto the Swift Glacier, putting in fresh, swooping turns on the perfect corn. After some memorable skiing, we hopped back onto the ridge, and skied increasingly heavy water-laden snow as we progressed down. We followed the luge track out, and were able to ski clean back to the trailhead. It ended up being a perfect trip on Helen’s amid a crazy spring, and we luckily didn’t run into any bigfeet.