Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Saturday, Mar. 31, 2018

Took advantage of the last day before permits are required to climb Mt. St. Helens.  It turns out this is a VERY popular day to do the climb. We estimated there were at least 300 people climbing, maybe more.

We arrived at the Marble Mountain Sno-Park at 4:30am to find it almost completely filled including the overflow parking lot.  There were no more sign in permits in the check in box so we logged our group into the log book and hit the trail.

Here are some notes of interest:

1.  Over half of the people had either skis or snowboards.  While this is a great way to descend the mountain, I noticed some issues. Several people were having difficulty climbing in ski boots.  I loaned my trail spikes to one person to put on their boots for the climb up.  On the way back to the parking lot the trail was at times crowded with skiers and those without skis.

2. The weather was amazing but brought with it varying snow conditions.  I was glad that I had brought snowshoes and crampons. I saw one climber slip on the way up to the false summit and since they did not have an ice axe were not able to self arrest.  They were ok but slid several hundred feet and missed several rocks.  Bring your ice axe.

Overall, it was an amazing climb!