Mount St. Helens - Worm Flows Route, June Lake — Saturday, Apr. 30, 2016

South Cascades > Mount St. Helens

We got a permit to hike to the rim on Sunday, but wanted to avoid the crowds at the trailhead the night before. Thus, we hiked in and spent the Saturday night at June lake, and hiked the Pika Ski Trail (244D) to join up with the winter worm flows route to the rim. The flat area near June lake still had snow on the ground, though there were several snow-free areas that were nice places to put tents. We started our hike at 5:30 am from June Lake on the Sunday, heading up to the rim of St Helens. The first bit of the trail (244D - June lake to the winter climbing route) was mostly snow-free but reqiured scrambling over a rock slide area. Once we reached the actual winter climbing route, the snow remained soft the majority of the way up to the rim. We saw a number of people camping on the flat areas before the trail meets up with the loowit trail (and even some after that). The snow near the rim was harder (at 9am), and the views were great. We made it down and back to June lake by noon. We saw quite a few people glissading down, but decided to stick to walking this time (the snow was quite slushy by that time).