6-27-10, - Mt. Saint Helens

Went to Mt. Saint Helens for the first time on Sunday and had a blast!!  The weather was perfect, and I had the whole volcano to myself.  Arrived at the Marblemount Sno-Park parking lot around 2pm and found only one other car in the parking lot.  ...Some folks were having lunch in the lot.  My girlfriend and I started making our way up the Swift Creek trail by 2:30pm.  I was aware going into this trip that the south side of the mountain would not be the best place for June turns but surprisingly found it to be still pretty well covered.  I really wanted to do this trip since I've read about it in the Burgdorfer book so many times.  As evidenced by the Johnston Ridge webcam on Saturday afternoon, the northwest side of Saint Helens is still well covered.  I witnessed the same good coverage on the southwest side on Sunday while I was there, and would have had better and more continuous skiing if I had chosen a trail and route that took me there.  However, I have no regrets doing the true south side as I had a lot of fun!!  I only saw one other hiker the whole time I was on the mountain which shocked me since it was such a beautiful day.  My maximum elevation was about 4,920' and that left me with about 800-900 vf of skiing.  I easily could have gone higher if I had an earlier start.  In fact it was a perfect day for a summit trip.  I even got to see a little steam make it's way over the crater rim.  Mt. Adams was cloaked in some clouds part of the day, but was still nice to check out.  Mt. Hood had a narrow ring of clouds around it for a little while which quickly dissipated and left me with a gorgeous view.  We drove out with a gorgeous sunset and clear view of Saint Helens from the distance.

Some photos to follow.