Back home in Portland, OR, after an amazing week at Mt. Baker, I was resting up. Then I got a call from my friend Nick Lewton who wanted to go splitboard at Mt. St. Helens. Early the next day we rallied out of PDX, making our way through mossy backwoods WA towns such as my favorite, Cougar.

Nick was pumped for his first day of splitboarding. On an icy, unkept old highway, new ferns and saplings were evidence of the 30-year-old explosion being smothered by new life. Past the ape cave to Marble Mountain, skins on and up the worm flow basin, coming out onto the barren volcano; we were dwarfed by tons of gullies, wind lips, and the prominent, steep, sustained faces of Mt. St. Helens; two 29 year-olds shredding on the sleeping beauty.

There are no snowboarding shots due to the windblown and icy conditions, but snowboarding is about more than just the turns…