Mt. Shasta (14,179')

It's been awhile since I've climbed with --- or for that matter seen - Mark and Jamie. It's been since they flew in from SF and did part of the isolation traverse. We discussed me going there this summer for a climb in the Sierra's. Well, first there was to be a meeting "half way," - Mt Shasta - even though it's not geographically equidistant from both cities. So Alison and I drove all Friday and Mark, Jamie, and Nicolas met us at the hotel soon after we arrived. We talked about the climb, route, and life while they figured out their packs. It was a good re-acquaintance. Here's the actual route. Red, up; green, down.
Sat morn we had a leisurely morning and finally started rolling at the trailhead at about 9:00 or so. Our route was going to be the Green Butte ridge because we figured avy gulch would have a little more avy concerns. I was on skis and the others using yeti's feet. Turns out that GB was melted out and not in that great of shape and there was minimal avy concern for the gulch. We headed up GB, pic right. By the time we got to the ridge proper, mark and jamie dropped down into the gulch to ascend up to Helen lake. You can see them as specs in the pic to the left. The others, myself included, wanted to maintain elevation, continue on the ridge and then traverse over to the lake. Well, to make a long story short, we all finally made it to the lake taking 4 variations.

I continued up to 11,000 feet or so to get a run in - it was early, I wanted to get some more acclimatization in, and the skiing looked pretty good. About 800 vertical of nice corn turning into thick goo at the bottom. Then it was time to hide from the sun, hydrate, melt snow, eat, and get to bed early. Shown is the hustle and bustle down at camp taken from the vantage of the start of my run down.

1:45 AM came and we were ready to go a bit after that. The five of us were of varying phitness levels, with varying experiences at higher altitudes so I pushed for what might have been an insanely early start time to give us a bit more time to go slowly, etc. We hit thumb rock (12,923) after 2,500' gain at sunrise. We were pretty wiped at this point and taking a toll from the elevation --- but being this ~1400' from the summit by sunrise lifted everyone's spirits and let us slowly trudge on at any pace. I remember doing Rainier and running from camp muir up to 12,500' and almost dying because of fatigue and elevation, as i did on summit day on kilimanjaro. I vowed not to do that again and was happy to feel in 'great' shape. Shown is thumb rock with the moon overhead after our little break.

Turning toward the summit we crossed some rocks on top of the red rocks and up the ramp leading to misery hill. Shown right is us more or less at the base of misery hill. Note the shadow of the mountain in the distance during the sunrise. Misery hill was long and difficult, only because of the elevation. finally on top of misery hill we trudged along to the summit pyramid. After a brief stop at the false summit to the N, we crossed the ridge and made it to the summit proper about 5.5 hours after departing camp. After chilling out at the summit, pic left - we had it all to ourselves because of the departure time, we started heading down. At about this point, Jamie got hit by dehydration/fatigue and general nausea, time to get off the mountain --- slowly.

So we started descending the same route up. I booted off the summit pyramid and then threw the skis on. I more or less stayed with the group but obviously the going was much quicker, easier, and more entertaining for me. unfortunately the hour was still early and the sun hadn't softened up any snow on the top of the mountain so it was skiing over wind shaped, wind scoured crust. Below misery hill I decided to take a shortcut through the red rocks, while the others went back around to thumb rock and down. I wanted to ski the bowl on skiers right of the red rocks from misery hill, but being alone with crappy skiing regardless, I wasn't too disappointed. Below red rocks the snow turned into nice corn. With, camp in site and being in site of the fellow climbers, I took off and had an awesome run on corn all the way back to camp. Back at camp I started melting some snow while waiting for the others.

After a nap we packed up and followed the gulch out. even after rest and rehydrating Jamie felt horrible in the baking sun, making the going difficult. Again I skied down on some nice, easy terrain, stying with the group. Not soon thereafter we were back at the trailhead taking off the packs for the final time.

It was a great climb. Not knowing how anyone in the group would react to the elevation, etc, I was pleasantly surprised as to how we all made it. Even if the skiing sucked because it was early, I would have done the early start again in order to miss the brutal sun. We were on the way down, almost to camp, before it because intense. It was a great way to get back out into the mountains with Mark and Jamie we all enjoyed catching up a little and hanging out. We caravanned to the city and had dinner before saying our goodbyes after the great climb.

the trip back to seattle was uneventful, with a stop over in S. Oregon and even made it for a part day of work! Hoping to have more climbs like this in the near future! ---fun, successful, and great company.