It's been awhile since I've posted (fell into some books), so I thought I'd share this one.
After watching the mountain forecasts say all week "Early Sunday through Sunday afternoon are going to be amazing up at elevation," Ebishop and I agreed to go have a look around up at the summit ridge of Mt St Helens.
We left Portland at 3 a.m. and were very pleased to find that the road up to Climbers Bivouac was still open and passable. One note: the climber's register is no longer present at the Lone Fir Resort--there is a big plastic tub up at the TH with the register in it. We weren't sure what caused the change, but now you know too. Anyone know the story or have info about that?
We left the TH at 5:40 and were above the treeline well before sunrise. This section of trail has very little snow on it yet, which disappointed us, because we were armed and ready with snowshoes.
Here's an example of the current conditions at the base of the climb above the treeline.
The wind was quite a bit stronger than the forecast led us to believe, which initially slowed and discouraged us a bit, but we eventually got up past the rocky portion of the climb to where the snow and ice started filling things in.
There were a few other parties up on Sunday, but during the window when we were heading up the ridge, we had the entire Monitor Ridge route to ourselves.
The party in front of us turned around because not all of them had crampons, and there is an appreciable amount of ice up there right now. Here are some ice formations with Ebishop storming up the ridge in the background.
For enduring the cold and wind, we were rewarded with views.
