Mt. Shasta

July 2-4, 2005

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Paul taking a break near the summit

 

Report and Photos by Paul Kuroda

July 2:

I went to the SWS (Sierra Wilderness Seminars) office at the meeting time of 8:00 a.m. Our trip leader, Keith, checked out our gear and recommended leaving some unnecessary stuff in the car. SWS provided snow shovels, tents, stoves, food, harnesses, etc. I met the three other people who signed up for this trip: Don and Joanne from Florida, and Hong from San Jose. They were all experienced hikers but had not used crampons and ice axes before.

We got a late start because there was no rush to get to the high camp, which was located at around 10,000 feet (just below Helen Lake). The packs were very heavy with food, four-season tents, ice axes, helmets, fuel, etc.

We arrived at base camp in mid-afternoon, and set up the tents, which were very sturdy with many poles. Shasta sometimes gets 50-60 mph winds, so we anchored down the tents very securely, and built snow walls around them to protect them from the wind. Keith dug a snow trench and slept out in the open without a tent.

We went to sleep early, but were awakened in the middle of the night by a very noisy group of French climbers. For some reason they set up their tents a few feet away from ours, and didn’t seem to notice that they were keeping us awake.

July 3:

This was a training day, especially for the people with no mountaineering experience. I’ve attended LVMC snow school a couple of times, so I had a little more experience than the others. But I failed the head-first self-arrest while lying on my back. After trying three or four times, I finally gave up and we went on to something else.

July 4:

We woke up at 1:30 a.m., drank some coffee or tea, put on crampons and headlamps, and headed up the slope at 2:45. The snow had frozen overnight, which was good for traveling in crampons (no post-holing). At around 3:30, we reached Helen Lake (elevation 10,400), which had a lot of tents due to the three-day weekend. In the distance there were 15 to 20 headlamps from hikers who were ahead of us.

At around 11,000 feet the slope became steeper (35 to 45 degrees), and Keith asked us to rope up. This is standard SWS policy, because once in a while someone takes a long slide down Avalanche Gulch, which usually results in broken bones or worse.

The toughest part of the climb was from about 11,000 feet to the top of the Red Banks (12,800 ft.). Somewhere around 12,000 feet, Joanne started having trouble with the altitude and we had to take a long break. There are no flat spots in this section, so we had to carve out some small platforms with
our axes (so that we could sit down for few minutes).

Around 5:00 a.m. it started getting light and we continued up the slope, finally reaching the top of Red Banks around 6:00 a.m. There were some flat spots to sit down, so we took a 15 minute break for Cliff bars and Gatorade. We also put away the rope because the final approach to the peak is not as steep.

After the break, we continued on to Misery Hill (elevation about 13,000 feet). At this point, Joanne was really having trouble and our pace was very slow. I was a little concerned that Keith would tell us to turn around, even though the weather was good. When there’s only one guide, sometimes the whole team has to turn around if one person can’t go any farther.

After another long break, Joanne decided that she felt OK, and we continued on. Misery Hill was actually easier than the slope just below Red Banks. From there we could see Shastina (elevation 12,330 feet), and a glacier on the north side of the mountain.

The final approach to the peak was pretty easy, and the weather was great (about 50 degrees with light winds). Usually it’s very windy and a lot colder. We took some summit shots and headed back down.

After we reached the top of Red Banks, the snow was soft due to the warm temperatures, so we took off our crampons and started glissading. There were no obstacles like rocks or crevasses, so glissading was a lot of fun. It took only about 10 to 15 minutes to descend 2000 vertical feet to near Helen Lake.

When we reached camp, we took down the tents and headed back down towards Bunny Flat. We stopped at Horse Camp for a while, and finally reached our cars in the late afternoon.

Don and Joanne looked pretty tired because in Florida there’s nowhere to train for high-elevation hikes. But we had a successful trip because Keith managed the trip well, and we were also very lucky with the weather.