Summit Attempt Report - Mt St Helens Worm Flows Route 03/22/01

[scot'teryx]

We stayed overnight at the Marblemount Sno-park just east of Cougar and camped out in the shelter that had a wood stove that was going from a few hours before so it was about 60 degrees inside!

What better way to sleep we thought! We woke up at 5am and didn't get on the trail till 630 am due to fumbling around with packs and other stuff, even though we did that the night before. After finding everything we needed we headed up the lower flats of the trail.

The Swift Ski Trail #244 connects you with the Worm Flows Climbing route which is the recommended route in the winter/spring. We had called the Ranger Station the day before and got all of the necessary info and plotted out route on our topos. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and there was only one party ahead of us and they were placing pickets every so often, even thought the X-country skiiers marked the trail quite well. It was icy at the bottom, but come 9am it was pretty good conditions.

This route is 6 miles one way to the summit and goes from the Marblemount elevation of 2700' to the crater rim at about 8200' from there you can reach the true summit at 8365'. As we neared the mountain it looked quite difficult to traverse some of the ridges but we just kept putting one foot in front of the other. The grades were quite minimal at some times, and then steeper at some times, ranging from 20 to 40 degrees. Poles were the only option as self belay with our ice axes would have only slowed us down, but I would have felt more comfortable with my axe a few times where our steps we were kicking were just disappering in the slush on the higher grades. Towards the UW Seismograph station, I remember hearing Alison say, "This really sucks" as the steep grade was just slushy corn snow, and we were on the wrong portion of the route after following some previous steps. After scrambling up some rocks and the soft soil of the volcano, we found ourselves at the 6000 foot mark by the seismograph tower. We rested, had some goo and kept going. The summit seemed so far away, and we still had 2365' left to go. The grades started getting steeper, and the sun was brighter. The view was so unbelievable, with Mt Hood as bright as day, and Mt Adams pronouncing itself out loud. Mt Jefferson was viewable as well, which was a real treat! As we started getting closer we found ourselves traveling over snowfields that had small cracks that went from 100 feet on your left to 100-200 feet to our right. After my encounter with a snow raft on Granite Mountain, I started to get a little freaked out and more cautious. Alison was about 50 feet in front of me and Rick was about 50 feet behind me. We made sure that we were always in view of the other on the ascent, staying close together. The cracks started to get more frequent and our location under the summit got me worried. 3rd Spring day in a row, and slushy conditions.

We were in a safe spot on the ridges from summit avalanches but something did not feel right. I caught up to Alison and asked here how she felt about our ascent. She had a cough that was burning and she had a small gut feeling as well that we did not belong here w/o the skills that we were going to learn in the next few seminars with the Climbing Course. The risk seemed to great at the time, and we were still 2000' below the summit, which could be another 1-2 hours. Given the spring conditions, we knew we could make it up, but coming down might have been a disaster waiting to happen. We made a group decision to have lunch at the best seat in the house that day, and head down. The mountain was not going anywhere, and I'm sure it will not be too hard to get others to go with us next time. We learned alot, got some great pictures, and got some great experiences on a snowfield. The most important thing that one could learn was from Rick's mistake: Always wear Sunscreen!!!!!

We passed many people on their way up as we were heading down, mostly skiiers and boarders, and one guy didn't understand why we turned around. When I asked him if he was concerned about snow rafts and avalanches, etc, he said "That crap doesn't scare me!" He was a loaded gun talking in my opinion, and traveling alone at that!

We had smiles almost all the way down until the last mile when it seemed like eternity on the flat ground in our full steel shank boots. Ouch! After signing out at the Climbers Register, we got lots of food and headed home. After all, we had to go up Mailbox Peak on Saturday with Team Tracy. Hmmm.....

Scott Harder

scott@starder.com