[TR] Mt St Helens - Monitor Ridge 5/13/2012

[mattropolis]

Trip: Mt St Helens - Monitor Ridge

 

Date: 5/13/2012

 

Trip Report:

Hey guys,

 

Despite the strong avy warnings, some of us went ahead and did the Mt St Helen's Mother's day climb via the Monitor ridge route. We opted for a very early 4:45 start for best firm snow conditions - but even then it was well above freezing.

 

We kept as much as possible in the rocks of the ridge as possible as we went, but turned out there were no slides heard/seen all day. Still - caution was well warranted as we saw lots of overhanging snow and new fissures opening at the tops of bowls on our before-noon descent.

 

Full trip report and pictures here:

http://mattfife.net/

 

 

 

 

 

Approach Notes:

Day 1: Cougar Snopark -> Base of Monitor ridge

Day 2: Summit and return to cars

Edited May 17, 2012 by mattropolis

[Eric Anderson]

Glad it worked out for you. A buddy and I made it out on Friday, had to make it a quick trip since we didn't start until 9:30. On the way down we ran into the ranger setting up camp just after coming out of the trees and she was speculating about how crummy the weather was. Did she tell you about avalanche danger if you passed her? She said they were considering encouraging people to turn around depending on how things looked Saturday and Sunday morning.

[mattropolis]

We went up Monitor ridge by ourselves - no rangers (or anyone else for that matter!) at or going up our route. Everyone else seemed to be going up from the climbers bivouac (Bald peak route?) one more ridge to the east of us.

 

We were watching all the avy reports from NWAC and they got worse and worse over the weekend. I know I was very apprehensive on Sunday morning but our leaders felt staying on top Monitor ridge in the rocks should be safe. Starting at 4:30am also helped us get to the top while the snow was still consolidated. We summited around 9:30am and then headed back down. Speed = safety. We glissaded as much as possible and were back at the treeline by noon; but there were still people on their way up to the summit at that time.

We saw the evidence of a large slide in a bowl to our east; but it must have happened before we were up there Saturday.

 

Because we stayed on the high rocky ridgeline of Monitor ridge - I felt pretty safe overall but avy danger was high and on my mind. Still - I wouldn't have have done the climb without two excellent and very experienced leaders.

Edited May 18, 2012 by mattropolis

[mhux]

Did you dig a pit? Looking to go up tonight, hopefully stuff has slid or consolidated

[mattropolis]

No, we didn't dig a pit since at 4am it so well consolidated that we could use crampons most of the way up. That was our strategy and it worked out. My advice is that if you do go, I would get up as early as you can to be at summit not much later than 9am. That's when the sun started to soften things. Stay out of any bowls, not under avy runouts, and on high ridges/rocks.

 

I know we saw people heading up all the way till 1pm, but they looked miserable in the slop and I would have probably turned around due to the danger. Still, we didn't see or hear a single thing come down all day...