April 3, 2004, Mt. St. Helens

There was snow all the way to Marble Mtn but the coverage was reminiscent of last year mid May  ???. I descended around 1pm. On the descent the snow was, imo, much softer then ideal however I was able to harvest a few patches of corn on west facing aspects. On the lwr mtn there was a lot of wet slide oozing action.

I was initially a bit concerned about high winds as yesterday Mt Hood telemetry reported gusts in excess of 40mph. The winds ended up being a non-issue though. Using my wind meter I was never able to measure higher then 15mph on the summit

I will use my one photo-per-post pass to post this photo of Spirit Lake and Mt. Rainier. I believe the crater rim of St Helens is worth visiting if for no other reason then the magnificent view.



GPS geek note: For me one of the interesting aspects of skiing St Helens is using my GPS whose mapping software still thinks the summit is at the pre-eruption height of 9677ft rather then it's current truncated height of 8365ft. One would think 24 years would be enough time for Garmin to update their software . . .