Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Tuesday, May. 25, 2021

Hardest hike I have ever done. Almost thought we weren’t going to finish. Started at 5am from the parking lot. Had headlamps but took them off after 5 minutes. It rained pretty much the entire time we were below the tree line making for slushy messy snow. The snow starts in earnest about 1.5 miles in. The sun came out for our summit, but the clouds gave us no views. Everyone we saw summit had crampons on. There were a few folks with spikes, but they turned around. They just don’t provide enough “bite” on the soft, slushy snow. Even though we started early, we never got to experience the icy, crisp snow. The temps and the rain made it a sloppy mess from the get-go. The soft snow did make for some epic glissading. Just really consider each chute before you go as the snow is melting and exposing more and more rocks. Be careful on the rock field just after you exit the forest - lots of post holing and potential ankle breakers here.