Mt. Helen

Route: Combo Helen /Father Dyer/Crystal/Peak 10
Posted On: 7/28/2019, By: penadam
Info: Climbed Helen, Father Dyer, Crystal and Peak 10 starting from the intersection of the crystal lake jeep trail and the wheeler trail. Summer conditions to the top of Mt Helen with no snow present. Creek crossing near the start was slightly high, but easy to avoid. Photo is of Helen from halfway down from peak 10. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 5/25/2019, By: Grover
Info: Great conditions for skiing/riding. Great snow coverage from top to bottom. You can ski/ride off the summit right back down to the Spruce Creek TH. I'll add the obligatory suggestion to start early to avoid heavy wet snow after 11 am. Go get it. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 4/20/2019, By: jmanner
Info: Conditions are close to Bills report from a couple weeks ago, but it's starting to melt out in spots and the sastrugi is kind of annoying, baring a good dump it'll be getting pretty difficult to connect a ski from summit to car. We skinned to the summit and skied down again without the need to remove skis; a cool little climb and ski, definitly will be adding this ski to the repeat list. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 4/9/2019, By: BillMiddlebrook
Info: Caked with snow. Skinned all the way to the summit and skied it without hitting a single rock. That's unusual for Helen in April. 

Route: Combo Helen/Father Dyer/Crystal
Posted On: 6/1/2018, By: JasonKline
Info: Only one extremely brief snow crossing going up Helen. Route from Helen to Father Dyer to Crystal to Peak 10 was easily done on dry rock. Came through lots of snow descending from Peak 10 to back to the Aqueduct Road. It was more like a normal June 30 than May 31. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 6/4/2017, By: nedryarson
Info: Continuous snow starting around 11,300. Had to boot it up the road and then bushwack up from Wheeler Trail a ways. From there, was able to skin/ski to summit and back. Lots of bare spots but still enough coverage for a fun ski. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 5/28/2017, By: Double Oh Seven
Info: Good continous coverage from the summit down to about 11200. Nice spring corn in the early afternoon. Snow is melting fast down low. Bare stretches on spruce creek road with some snow mixed in. Carried skis up the road until we turned off on wheeler trail. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 4/4/2017, By: cory_eales
Info: Helen got 4-6" of fresh pow. The top half was mostly covered although there were shallow rocks that aren't visible due to the fresh. The bottom half was great powder skiing! TH has continuous snow from the parking area at 10,400 to the summit. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 6/9/2015, By: fightgravity
Info: Members of our party skied down Mt Helen, others enjoyed the 2000 ft glissade! Skis were humped up to ~ 11,200ft on the East Slope. Pics: Hiking Up to Treeline, On the Way Up!, and Panorama from Summit. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 6/14/2012, By: rockymountaindiva
Info: All snow avoidable to top, also took S side of ridge to traverse to Father Dyer and all snow was avoidable there. 

Route: East Slope
Posted On: 5/6/2012, By: jeremy27
Info: My friend and I climbed Dyer Straits on perfect snow yesterday. Start early as this route gets sun very early. As we were exiting the snow was just getting a bit too soft on top. Also climbed the west ridge to Helen and back to the truck. Really fun loop. From the highpoint on the ridge the scrambling seemed to get harder and there was more of it. It might be easier to travel east to west instead of west to east like we did because you would be scrambling up. We did end up making some class 4 moves in places. The descent off of Helen is ridiculous. Something like 2000 ft over one mile for us. We probably stayed too far south hoping to end up back at the truck. Descend/ascend more to the north for (I'm assuming) easier hiking. Good luck.