Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Wednesday, Jun. 15, 2022

Left the TH at 4:00 a.m. Encountered patchy snow about 1 mile in, and then consistent to Chocolate Falls. We stuck to the rocks on the ridge until the weather station. There, we put on micro spikes and carried ice axes to the summit. By that time, the snow was soft enough that we felt good in spikes and didn't need crampons but others may feel differently (we definitely would have used crampons if we'd gotten there a bit earlier in the morning.) We didn't find snowshoes necessary. Six hours to summit, where we spent about an hour (mind the cornice!) Awesome views, but accompanied by a gusty and cold wind. Glad we had big puffy parkas in tow. Given the recent snowfall, there weren't the usual bomber glissade chutes for the descent, so we hoofed it down for about the first 1000' and then found some usable chutes. Snow was quite a bit softer on the descent. Overall, we were able to drop about 3000' before we gave up the glissading and hiked out the rest of the way. Bad weather rolled in as we reached Chocolate Falls, so we were grateful for the early start. Returned to the TH at 2:00 p.m. (3 hours for descent.) I just love this route and this mountain!