Mystical Mount Shasta
Over the July 4th weekend, a dozen of us, mostly back-country skiers, rock-climbers, and other assorted Friends of Sadie (who sadly was away collecting wildlife poop in Africa), headed up I5 to commune with Mt. Shasta, a spectacular blast of verticality in the midst of an otherwise horizontal landscape.
Snow-climbing is the dominant means of ascending Shasta, and those who'd visited the mountain before warned of the dangers of snow blindness. Catherine was taking no chances.
If we encountered any of the aliens said to use Shasta as a landing strip, we knew they'd recognize her as our leader.
Predictably, I was the last one to be ready, frantically throwing coffee* and sandals and peanut butter pretzels out of my 57 pound pack to ensure that I'd be able to manage the 3 mile hike.
The Clear Creek trail, on the SE side of Mt. Shasta, took us through a beautiful pine forest, to a campsite near a verdant spring at 8500 feet - treeline in this area.
After relaxing in camp, we turned in for an early night. Our wake up call would come at 2am.
We started hiking under black-velvet star-spangled skies at 2am. Though the previous night had been windy enough that climbing parties had turned back part way up, we were blessed with perfectly still, mild weather.
We climbed steadily upward on a well-trodden path pounded into the scree by many boots before us. Headlamps dotted the mountain: our line of 12, broken into clusters of threes and fours; dotted lines below us, and glimmering lights above us, blending into the stars.
Our perch high on the mountain allowed us to see the first glimmers of sunrise.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, we could see just how big the mountain is, and what a long way we had to go.
The climb from Clear Creek trailhead on the SE side of Shasta is a long slow slog up scree and loose sand, especially this year, following a mild winter with little snow. Though I approach snow with trepidation, the one snow field we crossed convinced me that climbing with crampons over snow would have been much easier than the slow one-step-up-half-a-step-back progress we made in the scree.
By late morning, at somewhere above 12,000 feet, I could see that my slow progress was not going to allow me to reach the top before noon, our designated turn around time. Around the same time, we noticed that one of our group members was having a bit of difficulty with the altitude. Having been badly smacked down by altitude in the past, I advised him not to push it if he was feeling poorly. Three of us decided to head down, and I was pleased to be going down rather than up.
The rest of the group rolled into basecamp a few hours after us. Three had reached the summit block, but had not been able to find a way up the last 100 feet, which seemed to require technical rock climbing. The others had turned around above or below the summit snow field, having found the going treacherous and the time waning.
After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, we backpacked out to the road, and rendezvoused at the Billy Goat's Tavern in Mount Shasta City for cold beer and burgers** - never so delicious as after a climb.
*Only once I confirmed that someone else had coffee to spare.
** The veggie burger on the menu was sadly unavailable, so I had salad. But "beer and salad" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Snow-climbing is the dominant means of ascending Shasta, and those who'd visited the mountain before warned of the dangers of snow blindness. Catherine was taking no chances.
If we encountered any of the aliens said to use Shasta as a landing strip, we knew they'd recognize her as our leader.
Predictably, I was the last one to be ready, frantically throwing coffee* and sandals and peanut butter pretzels out of my 57 pound pack to ensure that I'd be able to manage the 3 mile hike.
The Clear Creek trail, on the SE side of Mt. Shasta, took us through a beautiful pine forest, to a campsite near a verdant spring at 8500 feet - treeline in this area.
After relaxing in camp, we turned in for an early night. Our wake up call would come at 2am.
We started hiking under black-velvet star-spangled skies at 2am. Though the previous night had been windy enough that climbing parties had turned back part way up, we were blessed with perfectly still, mild weather.
We climbed steadily upward on a well-trodden path pounded into the scree by many boots before us. Headlamps dotted the mountain: our line of 12, broken into clusters of threes and fours; dotted lines below us, and glimmering lights above us, blending into the stars.
Our perch high on the mountain allowed us to see the first glimmers of sunrise.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, we could see just how big the mountain is, and what a long way we had to go.
The climb from Clear Creek trailhead on the SE side of Shasta is a long slow slog up scree and loose sand, especially this year, following a mild winter with little snow. Though I approach snow with trepidation, the one snow field we crossed convinced me that climbing with crampons over snow would have been much easier than the slow one-step-up-half-a-step-back progress we made in the scree.
By late morning, at somewhere above 12,000 feet, I could see that my slow progress was not going to allow me to reach the top before noon, our designated turn around time. Around the same time, we noticed that one of our group members was having a bit of difficulty with the altitude. Having been badly smacked down by altitude in the past, I advised him not to push it if he was feeling poorly. Three of us decided to head down, and I was pleased to be going down rather than up.
The rest of the group rolled into basecamp a few hours after us. Three had reached the summit block, but had not been able to find a way up the last 100 feet, which seemed to require technical rock climbing. The others had turned around above or below the summit snow field, having found the going treacherous and the time waning.
After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, we backpacked out to the road, and rendezvoused at the Billy Goat's Tavern in Mount Shasta City for cold beer and burgers** - never so delicious as after a climb.
*Only once I confirmed that someone else had coffee to spare.
** The veggie burger on the menu was sadly unavailable, so I had salad. But "beer and salad" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Comments
p.s., Can you get Sami an autograph from the King?