SummitPost - My 21 year dream come True -- Trip Reports

I first saw Mt. Shasta around Labor Day in 1983. I had recently moved to California and was beginning to explore different recreation areas in the state. A group of co-workers from the Bay Area decided to go camping at the Lake Siskyou campground right outside of the town Mt Shasta. When you are at the campground you have a wonderful view of the mountain, especially from the lake�s shore.

There is just something about Mt Shasta. Pictures cannot even really convey the enormity of this mountain. I think it has something to do with the fact that there are no other large mountains around it. The mountain towers over 10,000 feet above its surroundings. The area it encompasses is huge. It stands alone as a solitary peak as the backdrop for the town of Mt Shasta. The scene may remind you of the town and the mountain in the movie Dante's Peak or the town where the Eiger is in Switzerland. The town of Mt Shasta is a one-mountain town. When people see this mountain up close, they are awestruck. Its beauty is grand. This is the effect that this mountain had on me and as a mountain climber, I have wanted to climb this mountain ever since. Sometime in the 1985 timeframe, I bought a Springer spaniel puppy and named her Shasta. The mountain was always in the forefront of my thoughts.

Back then in 1983, I wasn't really into mountaineering the way I am now and I didn't have any friends who had any desire to climb the mountain. I spent many holiday weekends camping in and around Mt Shasta. I did backpacking trips in the Trinity Alps, camping trips at Lake Siskyou, and more camping trips near the town of Burney, CA. All of these areas have wonderful and different views of the mountain. I lived in CA for nearly 7 years and never once got the opportunity to climb the mountain.

In 1989, after the big �World Series� earthquake in the Bay Area, I left California thinking I would never see Mt Shasta again. I was moving to Colorado.

Fast forward to 2003. After living in Colorado for the last 15 years, I have climbed many mountains here. There are so many mountains here, I never really thought about going anywhere else to climb mountains since there were more in this state than I would ever hope to climb. That was until I met someone who had attempted Mt Shasta and she didn't get to the summit due the weather. In talking with her about the climb, she was interested in attempting the mountain again. From there plans began forming in the fall of 2003 to climb the mountain early summer in 2004. I convinced my boyfriend, Aaron, to join us so we had a strong party of three to attempt the climb.

Mt Shasta is so large; you can see it over 100 miles away to the south. Due to the snow cover, it hovers on the horizon and looks like a large cloud until you get a little closer and can really tell what it is. Of course you can see it from so far away because there are no other mountains to get in its way either! The mountain is covered with snow the majority of the year.

We planned our trip for the week after Memorial Day. We didn't want to be there on the holiday weekend since the mountain would be very crowded. We scheduled ourselves to meet up on Tuesday June 1st at Horse Camp.

One of the coolest things about Mt Shasta is the number of routes you can take up the mountain. There is something for everyone. There is what I call the pedestrian route, Avalanche Gulch, but there are more technical routes up ridges and across glaciers. The mountain is large enough that you can avoid all of the people if you wanted to.

We had decided to either climb the Avalanche Gulch route or up Casaval Ridge. The climbs on the South/West side of the mountain typically begin at the Bunny Flat trailhead, which is at 6950 feet. From there you hike up to Horse Camp. Horse Camp is where the Sierra Club Foundation Cabin is located. The Sierra club had purchased 720 acres surrounding horse camp and began construction of the cabin in 1922. It is about 1.7 miles from Bunny Flat to the cabin. In the early days before the road, climbers would pack in with horses and leave them that this spot near timberline. It is at 8000 feet. We had decided to make this a 2-day climb and set up camp at Helen Lake. There is no lake there - but I imagine in drought years when the snow melts out fairly well, there might be a tarn of some sort there. Helen Lake is a very popular camping area for climbers.

Aaron and I left the Bunny Flat trailhead on Tuesday morning around 9 am. It was already sunny and warm and the snow by the trailhead was soft and slushy. We immediately put on our snowshoes and began the trek up to Horse Camp. Our packs were heavy with all of our equipment, ice axes, snowshoes, crampons and helmets along with the usual hiking and camping gear.

Our friend Eileen , Peak Freak was already on the mountain. As she was training for a climb of Mt Elbrus (the highest point in Europe) later in the month of June, she figured spending a few days at altitude would be good training. We got to Horse Camp and rendezvoused with Eileen. We discovered that she had made the summit the day before up the Casaval Ridge route. She indicated that the ridge was very steep and icy so we made the decision to go up Avalanche Gulch. We had a limited amount of time to make the summit and the AG route would best ensure our success.

From Horse Camp � you go up Spring hill which is the start of the climber�s gully which leads up to the middle of the moraine. I think you actually hike over several moraines until you get towards the moraine called Helen Lake.

We continued climbing/snowshoeing up the climbers gully and arrived at Helen Lake in mid-afternoon and set up camp. It is funny to imagine from the pictures of all the snow how hot it could be while camped at Helen Lake. I think it was about 70 degrees but it felt like 100. You are surrounded by nothing but snow and all of the reflective sun off the snow really warms things up. As we were setting up camp, we witnessed several rocks falling from the red banks and from the ridge tops. Avalanche Gulch is like a bowling alley in the afternoons. Chunks of ice break loose after the afternoon sun warms them and come loose. Sometimes these chunks contain rocks, from small rocks to rocks the size of bowling balls. You definitely wouldn�t want to be climbing in the gully in the afternoon.

After setting up our tent, I melted pot after pot of snow for water. We got our gear ready, ate dinner and by that time it was time for bed. When the sun went behind Casaval ridge the temperature dropped considerably and the nice down sleeping bag was very welcome.

We had decided to get up at 2 am the next day and hopefully leave camp around 3 am. We wanted to make sure we were back to camp before the rocks started falling again. Over night pretty much everything in sight froze over. We woke the next morning to a full moon! We had to melt more snow for water, get all of our gear together, eat breakfast and we were ready to go at 3:30 am. It was crisp out but not too cold. Just right for climbing with crampons.

We donned our crampons and headlamps and started the ascent of the ivory staircase. This is the heart of the Avalanche Gulch route. It is a 2500-foot steep climb from Helen to the red banks and is the most strenuous section of the route. You continue the climb up some snow to the right of the heart towards Sargents Ridge. The heart is an area of rock that bulges out in the shape of a heart where the snow melts off first. This is probably the steepest section of the route at about 35 degrees. Above that you negotiate the red banks.

The red banks is a spectacular formation of red pumice that was ejected from Shasta�s main summit crater during a violent eruption 10,000 years ago. Once you reach the red banks, you can see the sun rising on the other side. With the sun rising behind the red banks, it casts a pyramid shadow of Mt Shasta to the west. Next to Mount St. Helens, Mt. Shasta is considered the most active of the Cascade volcanoes, and considered the most likely to erupt next. On this trip we were treated to a spectacular full moon set � the moon was very orange. The pictures didn�t turn out because it was still too dark.

We reached the very top of the red banks in about 3 hours. We continued up the ridge to our next challenge, Misery Hill. Misery Hill wasn't as bad as I was led to believe. The base is around 13,300 feet. The name sounds harsher than it was. But depending on the weather, your physical condition and snow conditions, I am sure this hill could be much worse than we encountered. It is about a 600-foot climb up to the top of Misery Hill.

Shortly we had reached the Summit Plateau: It is windswept and resembles a sea of snow with waves shaped by the wind. On our summit day � we virtually had no wind at all. 2 days later, a friend of mine summitted and said he had to crawl across the summit plateau to keep from getting blown off the mountain!! Mt Shasta is so large it creates its own weather. We looked ahead on the plateau and see 2 rocky pinnacles The pinnacle to the right is the summit of Shasta. We are very close now. This pinnacle was once called Muir Peak after John Muir.

From the summit plateau you can see Shastina. Shastina has an immense crater in it. If Shasta erupts again, it will probably be from the crater in Shastina. While crossing the summit plateau you can smell sulphur. This is where the Sulphur Springs made famous by John Muir are. They are famous because naturalist John Muir once spent a night there. He was caught in an early summer snowstorm in 1877. Muir concluded the only way to survive was to lie in the hot pockets of mineral water and mud. Muir and his climbing partner survived the night thanks to these hot springs.

From the Summit Plateau � it is a short distance to the actual summit. We hiked over where the sulphur fumorales that had melted the snow around them. We were able to negotiate around them.

Once on the summit you have wonderful views of the mountain and all of its glaciers and canyons. To the south you can see Mt Lassen, the southern most volcano in the Cascade range. To the north you can see Mt McLoughlin, which is in Oregon. You can see the Trinity Alps and Castle Crag State Park. It is very different than being on top of a Colorado mountain where all you can see are mountains as far as the eye can see. We are definitely spoiled living here where there are so many wonderful mountains to climb and see. Although the view from the summit wasn�t quite as spectacular, it was very special all the same.

We signed the summit register, which is the nicest register I have ever seen. It is a hardbound book with blank pages in it. It is stored in a cast iron box, which protects it from the elements. After that we enjoyed nearly an hour on the summit with perfect weather taking pictures and eating lots of food to refuel ourselves for the descent. After all we were only at our halfway point.

After our glorious hour on top, we began our climb back down. Since it was still early in the morning, the snow was still quite hard making our descent a little easier. Once we got below the red banks, we started our glissade down to camp.

By this time, the snow was warming up quite a bit so the glissading got a little tougher. We reached Helen Lake, packed up our camp and continued our descent down the mountain. Glissading got very tough with our heavy packs back on. As we left the mountain, many climbers were going up to start their ascent.

What a great and memorable trip it had been. We had reached our goal and made it back. We had perfect weather and got to take lots of pictures to remember the mountain and our ascent. My goal of climbing Mt Shasta came true 21 years later! Many thanks to Aaron and Eileen for making my dream come true.

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