Mt. Shasta - July 2-3

Over an epic 48 hours during the 4th of July weekend, my friend Nick and I journeyed to northern California and climbed the Avalanche Gulch route up Mt. Shasta. At 14,179 feet, Shasta is the second highest peak in the Cascades and a certified "fourteener" along with Mt. Rainier in Washington. This expedition included several firsts: my first time attempting Shasta, my first significant ascent without a guide, my first climb in California and my first Pentaquest mountain with only a team of two.

In addition to the many firsts, Shasta folklore added to the epic nature of the trip. Shasta is sacred to the Native Americans (according to the author Steve Lewis, most will not ascend above the timberline). It is the legendary home of the Lemurians (a super race from the lost continent of Lemuria) and several other myths involving a golden subterranean city and a people known for making mystical bells. Shasta is also a hotbed of UFO activity and a magnet for people drawn to the spiritual properties of the mountain. I'm not making this stuff up (I encourage you to Google it)! I can't say I agree with the mythology, but I can easily see why it's considered a spiritual place - Shasta is stunningly beautiful, relatively remote (for California), surprisingly quiet and peaceful. It makes sense to me that such a place is considered sacred.

The journey began Friday morning (7/2) at 12:30 a.m. when I picked up Nick in Portland and we headed south on I-5. Driving through the night, we hit a steady stream of rain squalls across central and southern Oregon. Fortunately, the Siskiyous Mountains near Ashland held back the clouds from California. As we traversed the pass just after sunrise, we were treated to a clear blue sky and an unobstructed view of Shasta. After a quick breakfast at the Black Bear Diner in Mt. Shasta City and stop at the ranger station to pay for permits, we headed to the trailhead at Bunny Flat.

The climb officially began around 9:00 a.m. as we started hiking on a snow covered path through the woods. Before leaving the parking lot, I read an invocation by my friend Colin as a show of respect for the mountain. Early conditions were great - the snow was still firm enough to easily walk on, the sun was out and wind non-existent. After a mile and a half we reached Horse Camp and a cabin run by the Sierra Club. Next to the cabin is a spring with the purest water you will arguably find anywhere. We filled up a few water bottles and continued our upward progression toward high camp at Helen Lake.

Shortly beyond Horse Camp the tree coverage diminished and we entered the snowfield near the base of Avalanche Gulch. Ominously named, the Gulch is the most common route up the mountain and considered an ideal path for first-time Shasta climbers. John Muir himself climbed this route to the summit in the 1800s. From the base of the Gulch we were able to observe the entire route we would climb over the next two days.

As the day progressed, we slogged our way up the mountain to Helen Lake. At our backs, all of northern California became more visible with each step, including the Trinity Alps, Sacramento Valley and numerous communities, rivers and lakes. Although we were in California, the terrain did not look much different from similar vistas on Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. The notion that Cascadia can be defined as a region extending from southern British Columbia to northern California does not seem far-fetched when you're standing at 9,000 feet on Shasta.

We reached high camp at Helen Lake by mid-afternoon and claimed a prime spot in the snow to bivouac for the night. After setting up our gear, we ate a quick meal and boiled water for the next day. And then the wind started to pick up. Between the howling wind, a conversation with a forest ranger about the weather forecast for Saturday and my inexperience with Shasta, I began to lose heart about proceeding. Fortunately Nick pushed me to give it a shot the next day. When we woke up in the morning, the wind had died down and conditions seemed much improved from the previous evening. The rising sun caused the mountain to cast an enormous pyramid-shaped shadow across the landscape. Thanks to Nick, at that moment we decided to try for the summit - we could always turn back if the wind became unsafe.

Around 6:30 a.m. we left our camping gear at Helen Lake and started climbing up a steep slope toward the Red Banks, a band of rocks all climbers must pass through in order to reach the summit. We used our crampons and ice axes for the first time on the trip. Climbers that left camp several hours earlier dotted the route in front of us like tiny ants. After 15 minutes, it became apparent Nick and I were climbing at different speeds (I was going slower). I told Nick to proceed at his own pace and we would meet up periodically. As a result of this conversation, we both essentially climbed the mountain solo.

After several hours, we both neared the top of the Red Banks (with Nick about 10 minutes ahead of me). Along the way, several large chunks of ice spiraled down the mountain causing everyone climbing to pause. Two weeks ago, a few climbers were injured by falling debris on the same route. Nick and I - and everyone else on the mountain - were lucky. As we neared the giant rocks of the Red Banks, the sun began to clip the pinnacles above us. It was beautiful, but it also meant the firm snow we were climbing on would soon begin to melt and increase the icefall hazard.

I couldn't stop myself from looking back at the view every few minutes as the landscape rapidly changed in the light of the rising sun. I also kept noticing how small the campsite at Helen Lake looked from near the top of the Red Banks. I should mention there is no lake at Helen Lake - the only time it appears is during years of extreme drought.

By this time I was still feeling great, but moving at a slow pace. I pushed myself through a snow chute between two rocks in the Red Banks and reached one of the major milestones on the way to the summit. Before going up the chute, Nick and I had yelled at each other across the slope. I told him to keep going at his own pace - which he did. I didn't see him again until the summit, making the rest of my climb a solo effort.

Above the Red Banks, the route became slightly less steep on a long stretch called Misery Hill. However, the altitude started to become more of a factor as the air thinned. Whomever came up with this name deserves a medal from the National Geographic Society. I can't think of a more appropriate title, except maybe the Disappointment Cleaver on Mt. Rainier. I spoke with a few climbers turning back because of the impact of the altitude on their lungs. Although I wasn't feeling nauseous from the elevation, my energy level was greatly diminished. I had to dig deep (or "man up" in the parlance of the Pentaquest) to keep going.

Finally, after much struggle, I reached the top of Misery Hill and was greeted to my first view of the true summit. I rested for a few minutes and proceeded across the flat Summit Plateau towards the top. With every climb, there is a moment you realize you're going to finish. For me, it was cresting Misery Hill. As I neared the base of the summit, I was hit by a strong whiff of sulphur, a reminder of Shasta's volcanic history. If I had been feeling the effects of the altitude more, I'm sure I would have upchucked - the sulphur smell was potent!

As I started climbing up the final few hundred feet to the summit, I heard Nick shouting his encouragement from up above. He had been on the summit for the past 15 minutes. And then I finally made it. Of all the climbs of the past few years, in some ways this one felt the most rewarding because of the many firsts. I couldn't believe the view. The sky was clear in every direction: to the north, the Siskiyous Mountains, Klamath Basin and Mt. McLoughlin in Oregon; to the west, the Trinity Alps and the California Coastal Range; to the south, the Sacramento Valley, Mt. Lassen and the edge of the Bay Area; and to the east, mountains and hills leading up to the Nevada border.

Here's a short video taken from the summit:

We spent 20 minutes enjoying the view, signing the climber registry and refueling before beginning the descent. The journey home went much faster than the ascent. We quickly traversed back across the Summit Plateau and down Misery Hill to the top of the Red Banks. After checking the conditions, we decided to take off our crampons and glissade through the Red Banks back down to our camp at Helen Lake. Nick went first and sped off down the slope. I soon followed his path, but quickly realized the glissade route was steeper than I felt comfortable based on the conditions. I decided to stop to reassess the situation before continuing. When I stopped and was repositioning myself on the slope, my legs lost traction and started going down the mountain. After sliding several feet, I tightened my grip on my ice axe, turned my body and pounded the axe into the slope to self-arrest to a stop. It's the first time I've ever had to self-arrest in action and it rattled me. I forced myself to shake it off and slowly glissaded down to Helen Lake. Nick wondered what had happened since it took me a lot longer than him to make it down, but after my scare I didn't want to take any chances.

I then packed up my bivy sack and other camping gear and prepared to head back to the car. Despite returning to where we had started the day in less than two hours, we still had almost four thousand vertical feet to travel back to the trailhead. We were able to glissade a few stretches down Avalanche Gulch, but the slope wasn't steep enough to go the entire way. When we reached the forest below Horse Camp, we traveled with care because Nick had overheard a ranger saying the snow-covered trail through the woods caused a lot of slipping injuries because of the slick conditions. By 5:30 p.m., we made it back to the car.

We then returned to the Black Bear Diner in Mt. Shasta City for a post-climb feast and drove back to Portland. Tom Petty and Bob Marley provided the soundtrack to our victorious trek home. I dropped Nick off around 1:30 a.m., nearly 48 hours from when I first picked him up.

This trip was a game-changer for me as a climber. I made a few mistakes, but I'll be much stronger in the future as a result of the lessons learned. I plan to use guides on Hood, Rainier and other mountains for many, many climbs to come until I'm more experienced. But it was significant for me (and Nick) to attempt and successfully climb Shasta without help. It's impossible to grow as a climber and a person without pushing outside of one's comfort zone.