bpope’s blog

Background information: Mt Shasta (14,179′) is near the southern end of the Cascade Range. For more info on the route and the mountain, check out the SummitPost page.

I had been looking to climb Mt. Shasta since I drove from Seattle to San Francisco via I-5 last summer. For miles and miles, Shasta stood alone and magnificent in the distance, an adventure waiting to happen. So this year, after climbing Whitney, I got a group of friends together to make the attempt. Knowing that this year’s snow conditions were good late into the season, we picked a date in mid-July that worked for everyone.

Since most of the group was 100% new to snow travel (i.e. crampons and ice axes), we settled on the most traveled route up to the summit: Avalanche Gulch. Given the difficulty with altitude that we had on Whitney, we decided to spend our first night at the trailhead and second night at Lake Helen (elev. 10,400′ in order to aid in acclimatization. So, on Friday after work the seven of us piled into two cars and started driving for the Bunny Flat Trailhead. We arrived at Bunny Flat at about 11pm, got out of the car and looked up to a clear sky glistening with stars and lit by the milky way. Awesome start to the trip. We stumbled through the dark a little bit to find a campsite across the street from the trailhead, and promptly called it a night.

Group shot at the Bunny Flat trailhead

We got up about 7ish (it’s amazing how easy it is to wake up when you’re camping!) so that most of the crew could go rent crampons/axes. One car of 4 went to get the 6 sets necessary (I was lucky to still have my set from the Stanford Alpine Club). An hour and a half later they got back with two sets of bad news: 1) the cheaper place that we had called earlier in the week that had promised to be in stock had sold out and 2) the place they ended up renting from (The Fifth Season) required that you have super, super stiff boots or they wouldn’t rent crampons without renting boots too. Oh, and you had to be there in person. So, the two who hadn’t gone to rent the gear got back in the car and headed back to town.

Fortunately, the time waiting at the trailhead was nice…it allowed me to take my time packing up and talk to some folks at the trailhead, which was very relaxing. By 11, we were finally on the trail, which put us at Horse Camp (elevation about 7950′) about lunchtime. Horse Camp is a cabin maintained by the Sierra Club Foundation, and is the last stop for potable water.

The thing about Shasta via Avalanche Gulch is not that it’s a particularly long hike in horizontal distance, but you go up a long way in that not so-long distance: over 6000 vertical feet. We had planned to camp the night at Lake Helen, a morraine at about 10,400. The trail winds up rocky terrain to 50/50 Flat, about halfway from Horse Camp to Lake Helen. There, we found some rocky shelters built to protect tents from the wind and lots and lots of pumice. Pumice is one of the coolest rocks there is, in my opinion, and makes you look wicked strong if you take pictures holding big hunks of pumice and don’t tell anyone what it is.

Ethan holding, um...not pumice.

We ran into snow after 50/50, and followed it around to the left of the Lake Helen moraine, which is much shorter than skirting the moraine to the right. Plus, going up the snow route let the group get comfortable traveling on the white stuff in preparation for the next day. We got to Lake Helen by about 5:00 pm which gave us plenty of time to play cards, make dinner, melt snow for water, and enjoy the sunset. We all went to sleep as early as our bodies allowed (unfortunately mine didn’t want to rest until 11 pm) because we were shooting for a 3:00 am start (yeah alpine start!).

Looking up at our route...up the snowfield, bearing to the right of Heart (looks like Argentine) and through a small snow chimney.

As we awoke, and stumbled out of our tents, it was surprisingly warm! I hiked in pants, but with the zippers open for most of the legs, and an R1 over a light shirt. The snow crackled under my crampons, and I took the opportunity to practice some skills: setting a solid measured pace, taking small steps, and front pointing were all on my mind. On Whitney, I had taken the ‘take a bunch of really powerful steps and then rest’ mentality. This time around, I altered my mindset to be a bit more conservative. I felt way faster and more efficient, too. With our headlamps off, we could make out the rock outcropping known as ‘heart’ (I thought it looked more like Argentina though) that we were aiming to the right of, and the chimney through the Red Banks. Looking behind as the sun rose, Shasta cast a perfect triangular shadow over the mist in the valley. Simply awesome. 5:30 am, at 12,000 feet, watching the sunrise and I couldn’t have been happier anywhere in the world. Just think, I could’ve been asleep at home…what a waste that would’ve been!

Mt. Shasta's shadow from the rising sun.

For most people, the trip from Horse Camp to Lake Helen takes about the same amount of time as from Lake Helen to the summit. For our group, that held about true, too. We thought we were way ahead of schedule, but the Red Banks, which looked steep but short, ended up being steep and long! By the time we emerged at the base of Misery Hill (which was actually quite pleasant, I thought), a few of our group were having a bit of trouble with the altitude. From then on, I paid even more attention to small, measured steps, and fell into a rhythm. Step, step, inhale, step, step, exhale…repeat. The vertical feet slipped by, and I barely noticed the effort. I felt great!

Pretty soon we were crossing the snowfield with the summit pinnacle in view, passed by sulfur springs, and found ourselves at the top by 8:15. While not completely alone, the summit wasn’t too crowded, which was really great. We enjoyed the sun (and sustained 30mph winds) for a while before heading back down. The whole crew was in great spirits as we headed down the mountain, trading encouraging conversations with our fellow climbers still on their way up.

We made it!

At the top of the Red Banks, there were two descent options: strap on crampons and descend the way we had come up, or skirt to the climber’s right and go around the edge of the Banks. Most of the group decided to descend the ascent route, but Chris and I opted for something different. I’m definitely glad we did, both for the chance to try something new, and because the views of the Konwakiton Glacier to the east. A 6-foot downclimb and some slipping down a talus slope deposited us back onto the snow, and a short traverse later we rejoined our group on the glissade troughs. (A glissade is a mountaineering term for sliding down the mountain on your butt, using an ice axe to control your rate of descent.) We were a little early in the day, so the snow was a little hard, but we decided to glissade anyway. Now, while way easier than downclimbing the whole way, glissading was still a little strenuous. It also made the 2000 foot descent to Lake Helen go by way quicker.

Suncupped snowfield

After a stop for lunch, and to pack up our things, we continued on our descent, through soft snow to 50/50, then on the trail from there. I was still practically floating on the glow from summitting, so it barely seemed to take any time at all. When I looked back up the mountain from the parking lot, with the chimneys of the Red Banks so small in the distance, I could barely believe that we had just descended from the summit. Definitely one of the best weekend adventures I’ve ever had!

Some closing thoughts:
- On both Whitney and Shasta you have to pack out your poo. While the Whitney “pack-out bags” seem a bit more secure, the Shasta kits win the prize for humor. They offer a paper sheet to aim at, literally. It looks much like this:

- I felt amazing on the mountain, even at altitude. I could tell there was less oxygen, but I didn’t even get a headache. I attribute this to a few things: camping at 10,000′ helped a lot, i really paid attention to eating/drinking, and this time the vagaries of altitude decided to not effect me.
- I’m looking forward to going back for a few reasons. On my to-do list is learning to downhill ski. I think a ski-descent of Shasta is a must! Also, I’d like to get better at glacier travel, so the Hotlum Glacier has my name written all over it.