Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Saturday, Jun. 1, 2013

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

Having not climbed anything larger than Granite Mt. previously, this was a bit of a stretch for me, but fortunately I was with friends with mountaineering experience. We arrived at the trail head at 6:50 and summited at 11:45. Hikers that arrived later in the day had much softer snow to slog up. Even with the firm snow, after the 7.5 miles up and 5700 ft gain I was so tired I could barely chew my lunch. We had nice weather going up and coming down, but visibility was not much more than 30 ft at the top. We had niece views of Mt. Hood, Jefferson and Adams heading up. Our only precipitation was a little freezing rain at the summit. Due to the poor visibility at the summit, we hiked down a little before we started glissading. One hiker in another group got separated from his companions coming down and ended up off trail, but was fortunately assisted by a volunteer ranger to get back on track. Everyone in our group applied sunscreen when we got to the snow line, but I neglected to put anything on my lips, so I have a some really chapped lips to go with my sore muscles, but other than that we all came through the experience fairly well.