Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Saturday, Jun. 24, 2017

It took us 4 hours to get to the trailhead Friday night leaving from Seattle and running into lots of traffic. We finally got to the trailhead and slept in the back of the Outback. Some had tents set up in the forest or even in the parking lot. Woke up at 3:15 and our group of 8 was hiking by 4:30. It was already getting light at this point, so if you want to see more sunrise leave earlier. The climb starts through the woods on a nice trail. Snow free (besides some patches) for the first 4 miles about. We hiked up the rock middle part while others chose snow. Some of the rock is very slippery and hard to get any traction on. After this point we donned our microspikes for the rest was all snow. There is a false summit and this has the steepest part. There were good kick steps already made until a snowshoer walked on them and ruined them (please don't do that!). One more push to the real summit and that section is not too steep at all. Took me 6 hours 15 min to get up. Applied sunscreen probably 8 times and didn't get burnt. Spent almost 2 hours at the top enjoying the views. At the top you can go to the left for the true summit, someone said it was another half hour away. To the right you can go down and get a good view into the crater. Make sure to give yourself a lot of space from the crater rim. A Mt. St. Helen's Institute guy was up there and said if you can see Rainier, then you are too close. Put on the rain pants, put away the spikes (don't glissade with spikes on) and git the glissade shoots. The first one is fine and didn't get too much speed. Then when you get to the false summit (steep section) there is a very steep glissade route that makes you gain a lot of speed. Make sure you know how to use an ice axe through this and know how to self arrest if necessary. This glissade route was the longest one I've ever taken. You can keep taking glissade routes down for thousands of feet. Be careful near the bottom as rocks are starting to melt out. We chose to hike down the ridge line/ rocks towards the bottom and the going was slow with how slippery the stuff was and trying not to fall. I brought 5 liters of water and drank 3.5 as it was a really hot day on the mountain. Off the trail at 4:30. Mt. St. Helen's is a beautiful mountain, but make sure you come with the right gear depending on conditions and respect the mountain and your limitations. Many up there not prepared or not with the right gear. One person without an ice axe glissaded face first into rocks.