The NWAC avalanche forecast (nwac.us) increased from moderate to considerable for St. Helens for Saturday due to the warm weather and sun predicted for that day. So we decided to aim to summit just after sunrise to mitigate that risk. On top of that, the road from Cougar SnoPark to Marble Mountain SnoPark was, per the Mt. St. Helens twitter, snow covered and passable only by high-clearance vehicles with chains.
So our plan was to park at Cougar and walk the 3 miles to Marble Mountain. Fortunately, a truck was driving along the road and offered us a ride, which we happily accepted. Most of the road is passable now, until the last stretch before Marble Mountain. Many cars had parked along the side of the road just before the snow started, and seem to have found enough room to do so safely. (it looked like a plow had actually arrived on our way out, so the road is probably passable to whole distance now).
We hit the trail at 1:40am. Occasional postholing early on, but not often. Put on the crampons at Chocolate Falls. Snow conditions the rest of the way were good, with good steps kicked in some of the steeper section. Looked like two other parties were up ahead of us, and a couple more behind. The sun came up around 7:00am, and we got the crater rim around 7:20am, so a total of 5 hours 40 minutes for the ascent. The wind was mild most of the climb until the crater rim where it was really howling, cutting short our time there.
The snow on the way down was very variable, we kept switching around between crampons, no crampons, snowshoes, axes, poles... One section about halfway down was very icy.
We were surprised by how many people were heading up. Estimated around 60. By the time we were down it was sunny and warm.
Made it back to the TH around 11:40am, for a 10 hour round trip. Walked part of the way back to Cougar and another guy in a truck offered we hop in for a much-appreciated ride back to our car.
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