Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Sunday, Mar. 11, 2018

Car camped Saturday night at Marble Mountain and started at around 7:00 Sunday morning. My sister and I brought both spikes and snowshoes. We met a guy the night before who just got down who said in the afternoon sun people were postholing up to their hips and even having trouble floating on top with snowshoes. In the morning we used our spikes up to the tree line with no problems but had to switch to snowshoes after that. The midsection on the rocky ridge was tough and people without snowshoes were postholing deep in 10:30-11am sun. The last couple inclines were steep and we were down to base layers around noon. We summited at 1:00. The way down was brutal- we didn’t bring skis and the heat had melted that middle section snowpack to the point where every step we post holed at least to our knees. My sister almost lost her shoe and was up to her waist many times! We fought through it and switched to snowshoes when it was less steep. Our first accent! It was a beautiful weekend for views and climbing conditions. I would recommend an earlier start to avoid slushy snow.