Found smartphone on the mountain. Comment here if you lost your phone.

Myself and everyone else climbed MSH Saturday March 27. Knowing parking would fill, we arrived 5pm Friday night and slept in car. Earplugs a must.

Left our snowshoes in the car and did not regret this decision. Carried crampons but only used microspikes. The snow was soft and sometimes deep, but the many many other people who packed down the trail meant we didn’t post hole.

Left 5:30am, summited 12:30. Stayed at the top a while and checked out the true summit. Glissaded ALL THE WAY from summit down to tree line. Best day ever!

While climbing up - the only question I've had - anybody left in Seattle who was NOT climbing Mt St. Helens this weekend? ;)

Anyways - slept in a dog-friendly hotel in Woodland, early wake up at 2:30 AM, quick drive to Marble Mountain (40 miles in 1 hour) and arrived to a very long line of cars parked on the right side of the road - had to park exactly 1 miles from the trailhead. Packs ON, headlights ON, good mood ON - started walking towards the trailhead at 4:33 AM.

While walking to the trailhead - have notice quite a lot tents setup in between cars - the line of parked cars could be much shorter if people have setup their tents on the snow - without taking precious road space.

The trailhead was packed - hundreds of people were filling out the self-issued climbing permits and departing from the trailhead into the woods. The trail was covered with a compact snow - so brisk walking in microspikes was very easy. We were following a group in front of us - trailing 10 ft behind them and another group was another 10 ft behind us. It seems there was a non-breaking line of people from the parking lot up to the mountain.

By the time it has started to getting brighter - we've left the forest and started our ascent on the slope. The snow was packed - and the trail quite easy to follow.

After laborious (but packed with the nice views of the sun rising above Mt Adams, Mt Hood to the south, beautiful and clean slopes of Mt St Helens) 4 hours of climbing up -  we've reached the rim. About 60-70 people were there already - eating their snacks, taking photos or just enjoying good views and sun!

After quick snacks and hot tea we've decided to continue to true summit. Views from there were even better. When were came back to the rim about 1 hour later - there were about 200 people there - and a loooooooooobg conga line of people all the way down to the trailhead.

Our way down was a combination of glissading in heavy duty 3mil contractors trashbags, walking down on slushy snow or glissading without trashbags.

There was a long line of cars parked behind us when we came back to our car. While driving back - measured the distance to the last car - 1.7 miles from the trailhead.

We had an awesome day with bluebird skies on the mountain. We got to the sno-park at 8:15am, barely sneaking into the overflow parking lot and returned to the parking lot at 4pm. Bootpack was nice and firm, and we only used microspikes for the trek. All in all, it was a typical crowded day hike in Washington and I can't think of anything notable that hasn't been mentioned in other trip reports.

Recommendations/Somethings I will do differently in the future:

1. Make sure you bring sunscreen and water! It's completely exposed beyond 4000' and the snow doesn't help. The weather report predicted a wind chill of 18 degrees at the summit, but it felt like 60 degrees as there was no wind throughout the day. I'm glad I brought the extra layers, but it was just extra weight.
2. We used microspikes the whole way, but the snow was relatively soft at 10am and was an absolute slush pile at 2pm, which made glissading a bit challenging. Would definitely recommend getting on the mountain early for a real alpine start with crampons/ice axe.
3. If you're looking for solitude and time to reflect about your place in the universe or your role/impact in this crazy world, this is not your hike. At least not during the unrestricted permit season. We were surrounded by hikers and skiers the whole time. The false summit was swamped by 50ish people/dogs hanging out uncomfortably close to the ridge cornices. It might be worth coming back in worse conditions just to get away from people talking about road traffic or how they bought a house in Portland. 

Took advantage of the glorious weather on Friday, along with most of WA and OR states, and hit the true summit of St. Helens. It was an amazing day, my best one up there so far! What a difference a year makes. There must have been 10 times as many people on a similarly nice day as when I went on Feb 27 2020. Both parking lots full at 6:30am, Camp Muir type conga lines all the way up. But still totally worth it. Snow was hard crust and hard packed on the way up and spring type soft on the way down. We hiked and glissaded, but skiers and boarders looked to be having great conditions noon onward. Gear included: Mountaineering boots, gaiters, poles, ice axe, glacier glasses, sunscreen. Made the right call to leave snowshoes at car. No need. We brought crampons but never used them as there is enough boot path. Only used axes for glissade brakes. Gaia stats were: 10.3 miles, 5,486' ascent, 7:48 total time with 1:50 stopped time. 

Road and TH Conditions: Road is in good condition, a little snow and ice near the top, but any car could navigate. Occasional potholes and dips you need to watch out for. Toilets stocked and clean. Traffic in Tacoma still sucks, though not at 4am. 

Trail Conditions: Snow covered from the parking lot. Hard packed snow and crust in morning all the way up. Could have benefited from micro spikes in lower few miles but we didn't bring. Lots of boot path and ski tracks to follow. Steep sections generally had good foot steps to follow so never felt at risk without crampons. You always forget how unrelenting steep this hike is in the upper sections. Most people stopped at the first sight of the rim. There must have been 50 people sitting along there when we arrived around 11am. We intended to go to the true summit, and this provided extra motivation. It was worth the effort. We only ran into about 5 people on that part. There isn't a good view into the crater from the high point, but we had lunch here. No winds, nice and warm. There is a section that is not really corniced along the way that opens up into the crater and lake and provides amazing views! On the way down the snow had softened and those before us created many glissade tracks. So we donned our gore tex pants and cut out miles of hiking with some fun glissades! What a day!