[El Puma]

We have wanted to ski a route on the west side of St. Helens for a long time. However, when we got there, the mountain was ringed with a low cloud band and we didn't expect that to change on ascent day, so rather than feeling ourselves through unfamiliar/ terrain, we opted for the normal route. Got to Jake's just before 6PM, HOPING it wasn't a lottery day! Only 12 reservations and 6 walkups though. I'd hate to drive down there and get rejected! BTW- Jake's is under new ownership- very friendly and excellent burgers as well as beer selection! Good road to Climbers Bivouac. Obviously no problem finding a campsite, but this place will be a ZOO shortly (as soon as school is out, they say). Scoped the trail a ways, but in general just killed time until 9PM shuteye (NOT helped by two kids running around all over). Up at 0420, off at 0450. No headlamps required. Good trail, no obstacles even with skis on pack, just a few easily circumnavigable mudholes and hard snow patches. I was in low approach shoes. The trail passes right by the impressive Swift Creek Flow, then crosses the round-the-mountain-trail and ends after about an hour total hiking time on a plateau, where the snow became continuous and you climb up onto Monitor Ridge. Changed into ski mountaineering boots. Worked great for kickstepping. My brother was in lighter hiking boots and managed to complete 90% of the ridge on rock, whereas I paralleled him on snow. Route finding not a problem - well marked and trampled. Snow was perfect density for stepping, even on steeps. No postholes visible from late descenders, either. Great summit day, 4 easy hours from car, with breakfast and picture breaks. Had the place to ourselves for 30 min before a group of 4, then a group of 6 showed up. We thought THAT was crowded - I can't imagine it in the summer! We were the only skiers/boarders. Had to time the snow softening versus the rising fogbanks. Ended up with a fantastic descent - about 3 inches of cornish snow on a hard but grippy surface below. Scoped a couple of fingers that seemed to lead quite a bit lower than where we'd have to pick up the trail. This would require a descent into the fog. Planned to bushwhack ourselves around the aforementioned Swift Creek Flow to rejoin the trail about halfway down. Initially followed flags and other tracks. When they disappeared south into the woods though, we looked at the map and opted to stick with our plan. With very few exceptions, the going was pretty easy. No brush to speak of, no big boulders to climb over, oftentimes an almost path-like gravel/sand line to follow. We were definitely not the first ones to do this, but no consistent tracks were found. In the end we hiked over an hour (albeit slowly) to regain the trail, so we may have been two couloirs west from the flow as opposed to the one we thought we took. Visibility at best was about 500ft, so it was hard taking any readings off anything (no GPS). The geography on the USGS map made pretty good sense though, and we were bracketed by the flow, the trail in the east and, if worst came to worst, a road to the south. Everything worked out as advertised (just took a little longer than planned) - a great outing on a great day. It had been a year since I'd climbed a Cascade Volcano, and I thoroughly enjoyed the skiing - I'd never HIKE down that choss-pile! Oh yeah - a note for the drive back: Jake's has very good ice cream too! (edited to remove question marks that the copy/paste from MS Word created for me...)

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