Carly Kovacik and myself made an attempt on Mount Saint Helens on May 24th. Unfortunately the weather window for the summit was closed. We received an unfortunate one-two punch of bad weather, getting drenched by light to moderate rain while ascending the lower slopes, and then being pummeled by 20-40 mph winds and snow/sleet near 7000 feet. Our clothing was soaked as we worked our way up above the freezing level, including gloves, which led to hands turning into blocks of ice as we encountered strengthening winds blowing across the upper slopes. Adding insult to injury, my crampons kept coming off, which seemed like a bad omen as we reached steep snow near the summit. The mountain gods were conspiring against us during this climb, which we recognized 500 to 1000 feet below the rim of the volcano. We turned around to climb again another day. May weather can sometimes be fickle in the Cascades...maybe we will try snow covered Saint Helens during the off season of winter 2022.
I took one picture during this miserable hike of Chocolate Falls while descending back to the trailhead, and I also grabbed a screen capture of our gps route. Carly donated some of her GoPro video as well...I particularly like the glissade.
Google map location is here.
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