Climbing Mt. Shasta

Logan and I just returned from a four-day, three-night mountaineering trip to Mt. Shasta, one of N. America’s “fourteeners“. We spent two nights at just under 8000 ft. elevation at Horse Camp. We arrived on Friday, May 23, 2008 at the base of Mt. Shasta with all our gear (boots, ice axes, crampons, trekking poles, helmets, and shovel were rented from The Fifth Season in the town of Mt. Shasta) and headed up the two-mile trek through snow to the place we would call our base camp. We planned a departure at 4:00 AM on Saturday morning, only to find that we were snowed in. With snow at 7800 ft., we knew we would be unable to make a realistic summit attempt on Saturday, so instead we explored, ate hot soup, and had a couple Pacificos. We were in bed by 7 PM.

Early Sunday Morning, at 1:00 AM, I awoke to Logan’s eager anticipation of the day in the form of talking to me too loudly for such an hour, to tell me… it hadn’t snowed anymore. We got up, had coffee and Clif Bars, and departed camp by 2:00 AM.

After three hours and approximately that many miles, we made it to Lake Helen at 10,000 ft. above sea level. We stopped for some Clif Shots and a cup of hot coffee; additionally we strapped on our crampons and put on our climbing helmets (light plastic helmets to protect from falling rock). This was the longest we had stopped since we left camp (15 minutes) and my sweaty socks were now frozen to my feet. To top it off, it started a mild blizzard (without strong winds) and half our water supply (my aluminum Sigg bottle, strapped to my summit pack) was frozen solid due to the outside temperature. We decided to continue onward.

Past Lake Helen lies “The Heart” so called because, from miles away, it looks like a human heart. At a 35-degree incline, it’s the steepest on our chosen route, Avalanche Gulch. We continued to climb from 5:00 AM to approximately 9:30 AM (approx 12,000+ feet), when continually-deteriorating weather conditions and the warnings of other (then-descending) climbers and guides finally convinced us that it would be smarter to turn back than to head into fierce winds, more blowing snow, and extremely limited visibility.

We didn’t summit Shasta. Truth be told, neither of us even considered the possibility that we wouldn’t make it, but it was tough, the air was thin, and the weather continually worsened after 10,000 feet. We may not have realized our initial objective of summiting Mt. Shasta, but for both of us it was a challenging first mountaineering experience, an opportunity to push our own limits, and it set the stage for even bigger sights down the line.

Click here to see the photos.

-TW

Advertisement