Looking up from close to our camp. We went up one of the moraines, it's hard to tell which.
March 19-20, 2004
Paul Belitz, Dietrich Belitz
Finals were over and I was in Oregon for spring break; it was time to ski. A bomber forecast for Saturday made us settle on St. Helens, and my dad and I headed up to Washington.
We got to the parking lot around 4:30 Friday afternoon, and started skinning up the snowmobile/XC trails by 5. Since the drive is pretty substantial, the plan was to skin up for a bit, bivy mostly for fun, and hike up and ski on Saturday. An hour later we were already at tree line, the sun was beginning to set, and we had found a nice wind-protected area, so we decided to settle down for the night. The night was warm compared to my last trip on Baker, and we slept pretty well. Due to the masses of people coming by our camp we opted to carry our sleeping bags and bivy sacks along lest someone rip us off. We headed up around 7:45.
There were masses of people, including one large group of Mountaineers or Mazamas, several snowboarders, a few skiers, and a few dogs, too. The hike up consisted mainly of trying not to slip on a thick crust of water ice beneath an inch or two of powder. In places it was a bit slippery without crampons, but the higher we got the softer the crust became, with the final slope before the ridge crest being quite soft. We got to the summit just under five hours from camp, and after taking some photos we headed down.
The ski was great; the ice had melted to slush over firm corn, and what hadn't been ice was
nice corn, perfect for larger turns. We shared our glee with a group of snowboarders who rode down parallel to our line. Some of the windswept powder created a
few spots of sticky slush, but until we got to the flats nearly all the snow was excellent. After a break near treeline we
skied down to the car where we found the parking lot packed with hordes of obnoxious, fume-emitting, macho, redneck snowmobilers. We were home in time for dinner.
