Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Sunday, May. 14, 2017

Attempted a Mother's day summit. The weather was predicted to be challenging and we knew it, but decided to make a go of it regardless. 

Drove down night before and stayed in Woodland (Woodland Inn, nice place). Got up around 3 a.m and headed out. *State route 503 was open with a light trafficking travel down to one lane for about 200 ft or so around the slide area. Arrived at Marble Mt. Sno-park at 5:15  Parking lot was sparse. MSH institute had setup canopies to register morning hikers and food vendors were on-sight. Some hardcore hikers/mountaineers had overnighted in tents. No snow on road or in parking lot probably due to the constant rain that was occurring.

Hit the trail wearing microspikes and basically used them for as far as we went. This was my first time on Saint Helen's, so I'm not too familiar with all the area names. But the weather changed to snow showers the closer we got to the Chocolate Falls turnoff ( around the trail sign 4800' ). And kept on snowing. Fortunately boot path was still visible and could see a trail of people ascending for about 1/4 mile (?). Reached what I called the radio tower below the false summit and that's when the weather really turned nasty. Wind was blowing, heavier snow fall and visibility was shortening down to about 30' or so. Bootpath was quickly being coverd. It was at this point we decided to turn around. We felt good with our accomplishment and new that this mountain, for now, wasn't going anywhere - we'll be back. My gear included 3L water, ice axe, crampons, microspikes, glasses, ski gloves and extra layers of clothing, plus munchies.

Good luck on your venture :)