December 25th. I was barely asleep, uncomfortably rolled in a little ball inside my sleeping bag, and barely dreaming - more of a thought really - about the Christmas snow angel of my childhood. I remembered her blond silky hair shinning in the sun and her halo, precariously glued to the back of her head. She wore a long white satin dress with gold trimmings at the bottom. There were sparkles on her wings and a gold musical instrument in her arms - I can no longer recall whether it was a harp or a mandolin, but it looked delicate. By far, the snow angel was my favorite Christmas ornament. She was always the first one out of the box, even before the Christmas lights, and the last one back. She stood on the highest branch of the tree and overlooked the festivities, perfectly poised and serene, year after year, as she did that morning in my uncomfortable sleep. I wished I could be the summit snow angel, and wondered if she ever got lonely up there. Then I wondered what that noise was. Slowly, the incessant annoying beep dragged me into consciousness, away from pretty angels and back into the cold alpine night.

It was 5 am. I fumbled to find the alarm button on my watch, and turned it off. Outside, the wind was furiously battering the side of the tent. I rolled over and woke my husband. "Babe, it’s time". He growled a little bit and went back to sleep. Then reality hit. Dawn was still hours away, there was nothing out there but a frozen night. We could go back to sleep. Who would know? Who would care? We could stay here in the relative warmth of the tent, or we go out there in the dark windy cold, strap packs on our backs and walk uphill for most of the day. At 5 am on a Christmas morning, some things make more sense than others.

Had it been another mountain, we might have stayed, but this was Mt. St. Helens. A heap of snow 8100 feet high. A much smaller mountain then it used to be before it erupted in 1980, but still a serious climb. Most climbers prefer to do the ascent in summer in one long day, rather than in winter. In winter, deep snow covers the trail and the summit seems to get pushed away several exhausting vertical miles. This was our fourth attempt at a winter climb. The first time, we were caught by thick fog a few hours past the timberline and decided that climbing blindly was too dangerous. The second time, a downpour forced us to turn around from base camp. The third time, an ice storm made even the approach to base camp hazardous. This time, though the wind was howling and the temperature below freezing, the sky was clear and the route safe. It seemed that, unless we climbed it in summer, this was our best chance to ever summit Mt. St. Helens.

My husband got out of the tent first and began boiling snow into hot water for our water bottles and oatmeal. It was colder than it usually is at that time of the year, and I knew that staying warm was going to be a challenge for the next few hours. To my thick thermal underwear, I added a layer of fleece, a down jacket, a layer of gore-tex, a wool hat, under a gore-tex hood and waterproof neoprene mittens. Bundled like a snow-woman, I wiggled my way to the entrance of the tent and completed the outfit with boots and gaiters, which had frozen solid during the night. I crawled out of the tent’s vestibule and found myself under the stars. How infinite and beautiful the sky is in the mountains! Away from civilization, stars appear by the million. Even the little ones - those that you never see in the city - shine their brightest. To the southwest, a faint glow hinted at the proximity of the city of Portland. To the southeast, another faint glow hinted at the proximity of daybreak.

We left camp shortly before 6 am and, after a few minutes, found ourselves above timberline and exposed to the elements. The snow was crusty with ice, but soft underneath. This made it both slippery and deep, a difficult terrain even with snowshoes. The trail was not particularly narrow, but it followed a rocky ridge flanked on both sides with gullies, not so steep that we needed to be roped up, but steep enough that straying from the main trail presented a potential danger. Mt. St. Helens took up the whole sky in front of us, gleaming in a surreal shade of iceberg blue. The glow of daybreak was steadily increasing in brightness, but the wind dissuaded us from looking around too much. Our faces were buried in our collars and covered by our hoods, hats and headlamps. Gusts of wind pushed us around constantly, like phantom bullies, forcing us to stop every couple of steps to remain in our path. I felt happy to be there though. I felt special; nature’s beautiful play of grandeur and colors was unfolding just for us, while the rest of the world was asleep. Whenever I could, I looked up and around, then quickly hid my face again before the next windblast.

We walked uphill for several hours before the sun came up. It broke from under the clouds at the horizon, slightly to the left of Mt. Adams. Behind us was a sea of clouds. The distinctive conical shape of Mt. Hood appeared through it like a Polynesian volcano out of the ocean. Rays of lights reached the forest through breaks in the clouds and awakened birds and small creatures. Long shadows slowly formed along the hills on each side of our path. Then suddenly, the sun appeared, freed from the clouds, and illuminated everything in sight at once. Soft pink became bright pink, then bright white, then slightly blue. Backlit along every ridge, spindrifts were sent swirling into the air, glowing white in their graceful flight. They also rose along the ridge on which we were climbing, straight up for a few feet then curling around and enveloping us in their spiteful veils. We took a break behind a rock to fill up on snacks and water, and to capture some of the show on film.

The excitement of the sunrise had completely taken my mind off the cold, but as we started up the trail again, I could feel blood pool into my core, while my hands, feet and any exposed body parts were left to fend for themselves. Though the temperature was right at freezing, we clocked some of the wind gusts at over 45 mph, which brought the wind-chill to about twenty degrees below freezing. After only a few hours, all of our calories had been used up just to keep warm. We kept going anyway on the presumption that once the sun would get a bit higher, we would have an extra source of warmth. We munched on trail mix at regular intervals to keep ourselves fueled in the meantime.

A few hundred feet from our break spot, the angle of the slope steepened. We took turns creating steps in the deep snow for one another, as none existed. We might have been the first ones up the mountain for this season, or the wind of the night had done such an excellent camouflage job that all other climbers’ steps were gone. In any case, all steps needed to be created and routes needed to be found. After about an hour, we reached a flat area. A peculiar antenna was perched on the edge. It might have been a seismic probe or maybe a weather station relay. It had a small solar panel on top and was covered with snow and icicles. It looked completely out of place, like an alien device planted on a frozen planet. My husband decided to brave the icy ground near the edge to take a photo of the incongruity, but I preferred to stay exactly where I was and enjoy the view from a safer vantage point.

The summit seemed so close from there. We both stood at the foot of the next hill and considered our route options. Without a tree or a person near the top, we had no sense of scale. The summit could have been ten minutes away, or it could have been four hours away. It all looked white. It all looked the same. The wind was still howling. We were still cold. Nothing had changed, except that the summit looked so close. We decided to climb away from the edge and upward through a giant bowl made of snow. Spindrifts came running down from all sides, entrancing us in their ethereal dance. Each veil raced past our snowshoes and swirled around us before moving on. Each seemed engaged in a cleaning frenzy, picking up snow here, blowing it there, making a little pile, moving the little pile, then back behind us to promptly cover our unsightly steps. A few minutes later, there was no sign left of our passage.

Somehow, one hill after another, we had walked another two hours by the time we stopped again. The summit was still so close, not any nearer, not any farther. It was still ten minutes or four hours away. A quick inventory told us that we were running dangerously low on snacks and water, and that my camera battery was dead. Could it be? Was Mt. St. Helens going to defeat us once again? This was Christmas, and this was the present we wanted for ourselves. All the other kids, far below, were undoubtedly already enjoying their new toys, but ours was one of ‘those’ games - the kind that makes you think, sweat and comes with no instructions. No words were spoken, yet we agreed that the game was not over yet. We started again uphill and simply stepped and stepped and stepped, more determined than ever. I slowly lost all concept of time or warmth, my attention concentrated on the details - the present step, the color of my snowshoe, a pattern in the snow, a small twig -, anything but the wind, which still raged around us, or the summit, which still tantalized us.

Suddenly, a loud cry of joy, something along the lines of "wooohoooo", brought me back to reality. The summit had arrived. I had focused for so long on the details, that the sudden change of perspective made me dizzy. There it was, all of it, the world in one vista. To the North, we could see Mt. Rainier, glowing a glorious white under the sun, to the East, Mt Adams, which had accompanied us since we left base camp, and behind us, Mt Hood, the pointiest and prettiest of all. Yes, indeed, this was the top of the world, and I was the summit snow angel. I was an angel with a headlamp instead of a halo, and a metal ice axe instead of a delicate gold musical instrument. I was such a perfect angel that the summit wind constantly tried to carry me away, but my husband kept me grounded. We exchanged a traditional kiss-at-the-top, filled our eyes with the view, and quickly pointed our snowshoes downhill towards base camp.

The climb down was much faster. With a combination of deep plunge steps and semi-controlled slides, we made it back to the tent in less than two hours. We ate and drank, then packed our camp gear and climbed down the rest of the mountain, singing something about walking in a winter wonderland.