April 20-21, 2002, Mt. St. Helens

Seven of us, Jeanette, Dorothea, Maxine, Ray, Charles, Ron and myself started up at 5am under stars /headlamps. Climb was on hard snow/ice but quickly softened - took us 7 hours. Beautiful day at the rim but we were concerned that cloud layer below us would give us some trouble. Our plan was to return on East side of Gulley and that worked out great as it kept us out of all trackage. Turned out the snow softened underneath clouds but made for slow skiing and route finding in that section. We came out of the clouds at Horseshoe Falls. Snow all the way to parking lot always make that return trail fun. We get back to parking lot and another climber comes up and said a earthen dam had burst and the road back to Cougar was washed out. We had to drive to Carson upriver on the Columbia river 60 mi from Portland! Didn't get home till midnight. 5500' climb 6 hr drive. Good thing we are only climbing 2000' at Mt. Hood! I'm looking forward to a little luxury.

Main thing is the road closure and anybody heading down that way should call Jack's at Cougar 360-231-4276

Photos from this trip can be viewed at http://communities.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/mtsthelens42102.msnw?Page=1

Robie