Arrived around 6:30 am with the roads and parking lot free of snow. Snow covered the foot of the trail and continued well into the forest. Used snowshoes all throughout the trail with some sliding.

We decided to make the climb due to the great weather conditions of sun and moderate 50 F temperatures after weeks of rain and snow.

Rain from days prior and the sun out with warm weather made the snow particularly slushy in consistency in some areas which got worse as the day progressed. We only made it 3/4 up the mountain around 11 am before turning back due to exhaustion. Even with snowshoes, it was difficult to walk back down without post holing or losing footing from the slushy snow.

Most other climbers had skis which definitely would’ve avoided this issue when going back down. Crampons or show spikes not recommended.

The road, parking lot and trailhead are snow free. The first half mile or so of the trail has patchy snow, from that point on the snow is continuous, compact snow and ice on trail. Starting around 4000 ft the snow was icey with a non breakable crust and this was the case up to around 6500 ft. Between 6500 and 7500 ft there was a few inches of powder with a layer of solid snow underneath. There was a good bootpack up to about 7900 ft at that point there either wasn't a solid bootpack or if there was I lost it, visability was extremely poor near the top. Conditions from 7900 ft to the top were 6 inches of powder on top of an older frozen layer of snow. It was cold and very windy near and at the top, my partner turned back because of cold, wind, and fatigue. I did not stay long at the crater rim. Beware of cornices on the crater rim. I used mountaineering boots, crampons, a trekking pole, and a whippet pole. Bring lots of clothing including a good pair of gloves and face covering if you plan on doing this soon.

Snowshoeing backpack with the Mountaineers. We snowshoed to above Chocolate Falls and set up camp at around 4000ft. Easy to follow route, well established boot and ski path. Started a little icy, with minimal snow for the first mile and after that it was snow covered. We used snowshoes, but microspikes would have worked. Snow was hard. We set up camp around noon and then Headed up towards the top. At around 6k it got foggy and windy and we headed back to camp. When we arrived fog dissipated and the mountain was beautifully visible again. Next morning it was sunny, we explored around in snowshoes and headed to June lake. Easy to follow, used spikes in and snowshoes on the way out. Started post holing and decided to switch. Went back to camp, packed and headed out. Thick clouds arrived and the predicted heavy winds. Gorgeous backpack trip

Thursday's weather report looked great, and work gave me the OK for a day off, so a friend and I headed up to Helens.  The report was pretty much spot on and it was a beautiful day up there.  Adams was clearly visible all day, Hood was visible earlier, but got a bit cloud covered later in the day.

Getting to the lot was snow free. Although the first step outta the car was a bit icy, so we just had to step carefully.

The 1st quarter mile was spotty snow, then turned into all snow beyond that.  It was cold enough that post holing was minimal and just boots were fine.  I think it was around chocolate falls we spiked up.  I didn't bring microspikes, so I just went ahead an did full crampons, which was a bit overkill at that point.

Around the monitoring station, I got tired of lugging my snowshoes and was confident I wouldn't need them, so I dropped those off, to pick up on the way down.

Maybe around 1/2 - 1/4 mile from the top it was wind swept down to hard ice, where I was glad to have crampons and an ice axe.  Then right before the top it became more powdery again - maybe from snow blowing over the edge?  At the very top all of a sudden the wind went a bit crazy, the 3 or 4 other guys up there said it had been perfectly calm up there for the last hour, they were just hanging out chatting and enjoying things, then literally 2 minutes before I showed up they said it all went crazy with the wind.  Ha ha.  We guestimated about 50 mph gusts, that were literally knocking us over and pelting us with little ice bits.

On the way up, a hiker coming down said you could see over the cornice into the crater and Rainier.  But from where the flag was, that wasn't true, so he must have gone further out than the flag, which I certainly wasn't comfortable with.  So no crater or Rainier view past the flag yet.

The way down definitely softened up some, but postholing still wasn't bad.  It would have actually been perfect glissading snow, but I was honestly too lazy to take off my pack and do the whole remove shoes for rain pants, etc - Mine don't zip all the way :-( - so I just walked all the way down.  I kinda wished I had glissaded, because there were actually a decent amount of chutes.

Lots of skiiers and splitboarders riding down.  Watching them sure made me wish I knew how to ski - almost every one of them was whooping on the way down, with one notably hollering (This is aweeeeesome) so it must have been perfect conditions for them.

The conditions were perfect for a Mt. St. Helens first timer. Clear skies, avalanche danger green at all levels according to nwac, very little wind, and temps staying low enough to not have a crazy amount of thawing and refreezing. Check nwac's avalanche forecast and mountain forecast right before you go too. I turned around at the crater rim, due to time to get down the mountain. Crampons and ice axe were definitely good to use. I did see two guys in microspikes the whole way up. And someone with ascent snowshoes. Lots of skiers and splitboarders too. There were a ton of people on the mountain. Please take the mountain seriously and know your limits. I was grateful to hike out with a couple people to the car. The road to the trailhead at marble mtn snowpark and has patches or snow and ice, but I got through fine with my minivan. I do keep chains in the car.