A small group of us from Utah made our way out to Washington state again for another Pacific Northwest volcano. This time was to make a winter ascent of Mount St. Helens. Two from our group tried it last year at this same time but experienced a whiteout and had to turn back within a mile from the summit. The remaining three would be going for our first time.
We arrived in Cougar, WA on Saturday, March 2nd, and patiently waited out the storm cycle that would deposit 48″ of fresh Cascade concrete in 4 days (data source):
Weather Conditions
Everyone hovered over the weather forecast for Mount St. Helens as it bounced around in true Pacific Northwest fashion. Finally, it started to show a consistent pattern of clear skies starting on Tuesday… that would be the day!
Road Conditions
Two of us decided to drive out to the Marble Mountain sno-park on Monday afternoon to have a look. We both wanted to see the road conditions before having to navigate this in the dark the next morning. SR-503 and FS-90 were nice and clear until the turn-off for FS-83. From there, it was pretty deep and rutted in places all the way to the trailhead even though this picture doesn’t show that too well.
Luckily, a tractor was headed up just as we were leaving that snowy road. When we returned early Tuesday morning, FS-83 was plowed to the Cougar sno-park.
The short 3-mile stretch of road between Cougar and Marble wasn’t bad. Half of us were in a rented RAM 1500 while the rest in a rented F-150, both with standard M+S tires. We also heard that two guys in their 20’s made it up that day in a lowered Audi (although, they needed help getting out). A ski report from March 8th, posted by Portand Mountain Rescue, called this drive the first crux of their day.
Avalanche Conditions
The only concern now was the avalanche report for this region:
With all this info, the plan was set to start out early in the morning and evaluate the conditions as we go.
