I hiked the Worm Flows Route for Mother's Day 2014. First few thousand feet of climbing was on mostly dry land. Due to alpine start at 415am, snow was firm and easy to climb. Snow was slushy on the descent and I was glad I didn't have to climb up in those conditions. Made it to the rim and immediately started making my way to the true summit. I soon discovered that I was walking on a thick layer of clear ice and conditions didn't improve as I walked towards the summit. Although I had an ice axe and crampons, decided to skip it. Brought snowshoes but didn't need them during the hike.

A fabulous Mother's Day. More than 500 hikers (maybe 1000?) showed up, many in costumes. The parking lot was crowded, and the outhouse was terribly stinky. I summitted just in my hiking boots. The first 2 miles had no snow. Then crampons are helpful. Most people stopped at the rim. There's a very short down slope, as you walk to the summit, that's really icy. Crampons are needed here, unless you are super careful, or sure on your feet (not me). No avalanche danger. Just don't step too close to the rim. See my photos: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4W0x9TorF6M/U3GTHARjG5I/AAAAAAAAEsE/AR_kfP1peaQ/s1600/20140511_075450_hikers_dresses.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xL4MBKuiZ1k/U3GaGOxmTvI/AAAAAAAAEsU/YXYBGYLssKM/s1600/20140511_113724_rim_panorama.jpg

I snowshoed up Mt St Helens via the Worm Flows Route from Marble Mountain Snow park it took me about 6 hours to climb the mountain and 5 hours to come down. Snow is patchy between 3250' and 4000' above 4000' the trail is 90% snow. The Route was long and tiring (5600' verticle and 11 miles round trip). The millage wasn't so bad, I have had days where I have done 17 mile day hikes but 5600' is alot of climbing and I was tired and slow the last 1000'. The worm flows route is easy and non-technical, you do not need any special skills or equipment if you stay on route. I would bring snowshoes to keep from potholing, the snow is nice and firm near the top but lower down there are still some soft spots where without snowshoes you sink to your knees. There are some shot steep sections where Crampons/Microspikes might be useful. On a warm day when the snow soft you would not need crampons/microspikes but when the snow is firmer you might want the additon traction of crampons/microspikes for some of these short steep sections. Also Be prepared for both heat and cold most of this climb was hot and I was down to a t-shirt but at the summit the wind suddenly came up and It got cold fast and I needed to put on my layers. I met another hiker who was climbing in a sweater and they were miserably hot and wished they were hiking in a t-shirt like me. Avalanche Danger:Low on the main route but high in some of the gullies. Snow on the main route was consolidated and safe I don't think it would avalanche. However, I accidentally got off route and had to cross a steep gully to get back on route. The snow in gully was lose and unconsolidated. I set off some very small sluffs just booting through the gully. When the avalanche danger is high avoid the gullies. You do not need any special equipment to climb the main route but if you get off route then you should have crampons and an ice axe. I had to traverse a steep icy section to get into the gully and I lost my footing. I immediately dug my ice axe into the snow and arrested my slide within 20 feet but if I did not have an ice axe I would have slid a few hundred feet maybe more and there were rocks in the gully that I could have slid into. The views from the top were spectacular even though it was a tiring hike I am glad it did it. This route has alot of boulders and it will probably only be good for a few more weeks as more of the boulders melt out of the snow monitor ridge is the easier route.

We got super lucky and had great weather and a great hike this weekend. Forecasts bounced all over during the week leading up to our hike, variably predicting everything from rain to heavy snow, and we fell asleep on Friday listening to rain on the tent. To our happy surprise, Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, and we set out from the parking lot at 7:30, just behind the parties breaking trail. Snow had fallen overnight, and the trail was completely covered at about 1/2 mile in. The higher we climbed, the deeper the snow got, and by the boulder field there was a good 4-6 inches, which made for some slippery scrambling. At the top of the boulder field we put on crampons, and left them for the rest of the climb. Other parties used Yaktrax or microspikes, and they would have been sufficient. Snow was pretty windblown and crusty in spots, and the extra traction was nice. I wouldn't want to bare-boot at this time of year. We carried ice axes, but never used them - trekking poles were definitely nice to have though. We reached the summit at 12:30, and had just enough time for a look around before some clouds rolled in. We left the summit around 1:15 for the long walk back to the car. Visibility was poor off and on, and we briefly lost the trail in a moment of whiteout. We thought we would be able to easily follow hiker footsteps back down, but on some of the harder windblown snow, they were easy to lose. We ended up on the wrong ridgeline (slightly west of the trail) and had to cross a gully to regain the correct trail once we could see again. In retrospect, we should have brought a GPS and made waypoints on the ascent to follow back down. Crisis averted, and lesson learned. Most of the descent was too soft for effective glissading, but perfect for plunge stepping. I did try some glissading lower down with the aid of a trash bag, and was able to slide for a couple hundred yards. Fun stuff, but not super efficient. We reached the boulder field around 3:00, and the warm temperatures and crowds of people had turned the trail into a slippery, slushy mess. We tried to stick to the snow on the sides as much as possible, but eventually ran out of room and had to make our way through the rocks. We took it nice and slow and still had a handful of slips and near falls. Definitely be careful heading through this part of the hike. Once out of the rocks, the rest of the trail was fast and smooth, and we reached the car at 5:00 PM for a total hiking time of 9.5 hours. This hike was definitely challenging, but made for a very enjoyable early start to the climbing season.

We camped at the trail head on thursday night. It was 40 degrees and cloudy. It rained during the night but was dry by the time we woke up at 0430. We got on the trail by 0530. There were only patches of snow at the beginning of the trail head but once we exited the tree line we had to put on snowshoes. We switched back and forth between snowshoes and climbing over the big rocks along the ridge. Above 4800' the sun was shining down and we were melting. It made climbing up the snow hard due to the snow being so wet and heavy. Once we got to the top of the boulder field we kept sliding down in our snowshoes, our mistake was not bringing crampons so we decided to turn around there. It was a good choice since the clouds were rolling in. When we got down it had snowed about a foot and the entire trail was covered in snow back to the parking lot. There were also high avalanche warnings for the entire weekend.