Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

Car camped at the sno park the night before with intentions of starting at 5am. Nerves & the epic forecast got us so excited that we decided to make it a sunrise summit. We fell asleep around 10pm, alarm woke us at midnight & we were geared up by 1am. We signed the register, double checked our pack& used the privy one last time, but it wasn’t until after 2am that we started on the trail, which was covered in snow from the very start. Us girls opted for crampons while the boys maneuvered in micro spikes. This wasn’t so much a physical challenge for me as it was a mental one due to the cold temps paired with the occasional winds. I had several moments of anxiety over just how cold my fingers & toes were, despite wearing 3 pairs of gloves & 2 pairs of socks. The boys also had their struggles with busted backpack zippers, dim headlamps, crampons & leg cramps. While we hated splitting up & not reaching the summit as a group, us girls had no choice but to keep moving to stay warm. We peeked over a cornice to see Rainier just after 8am & the boys joined us for a summit pic around 930am. The views were perfect; we could see Jefferson, Hood, Adams, Rainier, Baker, Shuksan & the Olympics. We headed down just before 10am & couldn’t believe how many people were headed up. Literally, I think there had to have been 300-400ppl trying to summit this day, it was insane. Lots of people packing skis & snowboards, some even had dogs & puppies with them (after hiking to the summit, do they run after their owner who gets to ski/snowboard down?). We reached the car just before 130pm after taking a leisure pace down due to the soft snow & amount of people we had to dodge.