Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Saturday, Mar. 30, 2013

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

We followed the worm flows climbing route. Worm flows climbing route starts in the marble mount snow park. snow park permit is 20$ per day and 40$ for the season. I recommend you take day permit since season is getting over. You may need to get permit and eventually need a lottery permit depending on when you go. I think snow will last till may / june. from the parking lot, take a west bearing, you should see a white arrow trail marked. there are many trails closes to each other, it is easy to go in one for other. but once u find the worm flows climbing route or swift ski trail sign, it leads you all the way to choclate falls. till this point, it is pretty easy walk, just like normal hike with very less steepness. You follow the creek as handhold and follow the broad big trail. we left parking lot at 3. We booked a motel in cougar which is 25 mins away, nice motel. it costed abt 15$ for each (11 people). We also rented beacons. Which costed abt 10$ a person. we took about 1 hr to get to end of trail system i am guessing since i lost the gps on the way. Once you are out of trail system, you come to the choclate falls. choclate falls divides the swift creek with gully, the east bank and west bank. you can take either one, all the websites and people recommend west. we crossed over the gully/falls and entered into the west ridge. from here steepness begins. you keep slogging and go steep, steeper to very steep at some point. we were at summit around 10, some people in the group summitted earlier. coming down was so much fun with glissade. we glissaded most part of it with some really long glissades. route is easy to follow up and down. mostly it is a ridge, and avalanche free. snow was good, lots of people. beautiful weather. lava dome was steaming when we went up, had clear views of the growing lava dome and sheer beauty of 360 degree panoramic views. we left at 3 am , came back to car at 4.30 pm. abt 5700 gain. 11 miles rt.