Skiing St. Helens now?

Hi all - have been lurking on this forum for quite awhile and appreciate all the great info I've read.

I will be climbing St. Helens this coming weekend (7/23) and am wondering if it is worthwhile to take my skis/skins along with me. I have never been there, so I have no idea what to expect. We are going with a group of four and two of us would skin/ski if the snow and conditions would make that an enjoyable (tolerable?) endeavor.

Any info/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

June 20 we had about a mile walk before hitting snow and hit a couple bare patches after that. A couple in our party of five carried their skis the whole way. Three of us skinned most of the way, carried on a couple pitches on upper mountain. By now, it'll be a much longer walk before you can skin -- but if you don't mind hiking with your skis, you'll have a lot more fun on the way down and get to the parking lot in time to savor snacks and beverage well before your partners. Make sure you have keys to the car.

Thanks for the info. I don't mind hiking with my skis at all (in fact, I just got a great new Marmot backpack  as a present, and can test it out). Looking forward to the downhill part.

A group of us skied Helens on June 23rd.  Conditions were quite good on the route's upper two-thirds as shown in this photo.



This trip report's pics , from July 10th, indicates quite a bit of snow remains on the highest slope.  I'm guessing you can expect, from the crater rim, about 1,000 - 1,500 ft of turns.  For reference, from Marble Mountain Sno-Park, the cumulative elevation gain is 5,500 ft (Climber's Bivouac opened 7/12).

Thanks again for the info. We climbed it on Saturday. My partner took his AT gear, but I did not. Ultimately, after looking at conditions from Climber's Bivouac, I elected to leave my gear in the car. That was a tough decision for me.

As it turned out, my partner ended up only skinning part of the ways and carrying his gear most of the way up. I would have been in a world of hurt if I had to carry my skis/boots all the way to the top, so it all worked out for the best in the end.

He did have a blast skiing down in the sunshine and warm weather. I admit a fleeting few moments of jealousy at that point.

We had amazing weather and a perfect day on the mountain. There are some photos of my intrepid partner with his gear here (warning: you will have to weed through all the hike photos to get to the good ski-related ones):

www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.101502...&l=d57a3179f5&type=1

And, I made a short video of the whole hike, which includes a few bits of skinning/skiing action:

vimeo.com/26848894