Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route — Monday, Jan. 2, 2023

Found a single snowshoe (pictured) at 5000’. Assuming someone was grabbing it on the way back down but if not it’s on the side of the main bootpath there.

Stats:
11 mi, 5500 gain, 5.5 hrs ascent, 3 hrs descent

Roads:
Bare pavement except for a bit of ice spots in parking lot, 4 other cars in lot when we arrived at 7:30am

Equipment:
Microspikes and poles (used ice axe on descent to attempt to glissade but forgot a garbage bag and snow was too soft), carried snowshoes and crampons (snowshoes wouldn’t have been useful, most other people were in crampons but we never needed to switch from microspikes)

Had great weather and snow conditions for a pretty straightforward day, had boot tracks to follow for most of it although they would get covered up by the blowing snow pretty quickly in places. Put microspikes on once we made it past the treeline and just followed the ridge most of the way up. We were prepared to switch to crampons but never needed to since the thin ice crust was easily kicked through. Saw 6 other groups up there on the day. We made it to the false summit but there were no boot tracks to follow to the true summit and we were nearing our turnaround time so we stopped there (the wind was pretty brutal along the summit ridge as well). At least 4 other groups made it to false summit as well. Descent was straightforward as we plunge stepped through most of the steep areas (snow was too soft to glissade) and just that first section above the treeline along the ridge where the snow was soft but not deep required more mental effort. Overall a great day!