Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Sunday, Jun. 9, 2013

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

Perfect weather for this Sunday hike: cool with low clouds in the early morning, sunshine and a chill wind by the time we got to the snowy slopes. Gorgeous views from the top; couldn't have asked for a better day for this climb! Departed Marble Mountain trailhead @ 05:30, made it to the summit in about 6 hours (with rest/snack breaks). The return trip took about 2.5 hours thanks to some long glissade runs. We didn't find snowshoes or crampons to be necessary, though ski poles and micro spikes helped with traction on the way up and we used ice axes for glissading on the way down. We should have worn heavy-duty mountaineering boots for kicking steps, however. For the last (and steepest) portion of the ascent, hikers converging from multiple points had beat a pretty good boot path into the slope. On the way down we had to watch out for rocks in some of the glissade chutes.