Mount St. Helens 8365' - Worm Flows (12-12-11)

This photo was taken by other climbers and sent to us. I am on the left.

Map of climbing routes on St. Helens

After an unusually mild winter up til that point, we looked at the weather on a Friday and I jokingly made a comment that we should try to summit St. Helens the following Monday. The thing about saying something like that to another mountaineer with summit fever is that they will share the same crazy idea. After settling things with work and our families we decided to start trip planning.

The first aspect to think about was gear. I had not yet done a winter or potentially icy summit yet. I had already purchased my Black Diamond Raven Pro Ice Axe Silver, 70cm however and was more than ready to use it.

Next and bigger aspect would be Boots/Crampons. I decided to visit my local REI and rent some universal crampons but they don't do that. REI made me rent a pair of boots and semi-auto crampons

Climber Registration at Lone Fir

Monday the 12th rolls around and I sneak out of the house around 3:00am in order for us to get an early start. Before too long we are already near Cougar, WA where we stop a location I had visited less than 6 months earlier. The Lone Fir Resort. Of course at 5:30ish in the AM there was no one around but us. So we wiped the frost off of the climber register handbook and wrote down our party info in case we went missing.

Looking up from the ski trails

Within a half our later we park and get ready to depart the Marble Mountain Sno Park. Here we are at a whopping 2700' of elevation. Which is about 1000' lower than the Climber's Bivouac. As we make our way with headlamps up the ski-trails I start to notice that my heavy rental boots aren't feeling so good on my right heel. After only a mile and a half into the trip, I decided to access what is going on with my heel. I pull off my right boot only to find that the inner liner of the rental boot was completely gone. (Because I have an REI Membership they refunded me the entire cost of my rental) I used some of Mason's moleskin to patch up around where the blister was forming and decided to keep going. Minutes later I realize that I had left a glove somewhere on the trail. (Lesson learned, shortly after this trip I purchased the REI Switchback Gloves )

If it sounds like everything was going wrong, well it was. I of course didn't have spare gloves so I opted for a wool sock, which is really not a good substitute at all I found out. As we get above the treeline my spirit is lifted again. It is truly a beautiful day and we can see forever.

Looking south

There I am, far far away contemplating life and being miserable

Now we worked our way slowly up the mountain. All my hard training and conditioning for this climb would have paid off had I done any. After a lazy football season full of enough chips and dip to feed an army, I was much more out of shape than on my previous climbs that year. As I put one foot in front of the other my mind was breaking. Mason was getting a ways ahead of me and I had to dig deep and ask myself if I thought I could actually make the summit. I actually wasn't sure if I could or not. It seemed like miles away and the mountain was only getting steeper. This added with other annoyances made this trip the most difficult I have done thus far.

But alas, we reached the top and traversed west along the ridge to the top. Our moment of glory at the top was out-weighed by the need to get back to the car before dark. Of course, on par with how the day was going, we couldn't glissade like we had hoped due to the snow being too hard/icy. So we down-climbed the entire thing and got back to the sno-park just as it was getting dark outside. We ran into a sheriff heading up the road as we were going down. I am assuming he was checking to see if our car was still there. I went to bed with what felt like a fever but woke up perfectly fine.

View from the top. Rainier in the distance.

Final Stats:

Summit: Yes
Elevation Gain: 5665'
Round Trip Distance: 10.6 miles
Round Trip Time: 11 hours