Frikadeller Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 (edited) Trip: Mt. St. Helens - Dry humping loowit Date: 1/25/2009 Trip Report: Well, I was getting tired of Hood, and decided to take a little splitboarding trip up monitor ridge. My Partner in crime and I met up at my house, and commenced the hour drive from Portland to the Cougar sno-park. We avoided the Marble Mountain sno-park because I was under the impression from previous trips that there is a high quoteient sled neck activity there. We skinned up road 83 to the 830 road. The snow was really hard and icy. We where hoping that maybe it would lighten up higher up. Well we go up to Climbers Bivouac in no time flat, and the snow was still in shit mode. We headed off on the well marked and blazed Ptarmigan trail. This is where every thing got way worse. The snow was too hard to break a skin track, and was all bumpy and hard as a rock. Even through all this, we where determined to go higher, in the false hope that the snow would provide better turn up higher. We switched to boot packing once out of the tree line, and headed up monitor ridge. We where stopped at around 5500' because we where heading into whiteout conditions. The snow still sucked. My partner rode the styrofoam snow down the ridge, basically in survival mode. I stuck to walking down, since I do not enjoy side slipping all the way down a hill. Made the long and crappy walk out on the Ptarmigan trail until we go to the road. From there borading was marginal until we hit the groomed section back to the car. I should have known that the snow would have made for crappy skiing compared to what I saw last weekend on Hood, and with the freeze/thaw/freeze action from the temp inversion all week. It's gonna need a couple feet of snow to cover up all that hot mess the inversion left behind. I won't be back until there are some more freshiez. Gear Notes: Used the crampons and Ice axe on the ridge. Snowshoes might be more effecient than skis. Approach Notes: Long approach along the road. Dodge the slednecks. Edited January 25, 2009 by Frikadeller Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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