Mount Shasta with her 4322 meters of elevation is a second peak in Cascades after Rainier. She doesn’t have a close neighbourhood and proudly erects above Californian flats (her prominence is almost 3000 meters). We planned to climb her in all cases, so when I left in September to Leavenmore to upgrade my wine qualifications, the Shasta climbing was reserver as an imperative part of our vacation after my course.
The traditional view of Shasta can be checked by the link above. When she is completely covered with snow the climbing is nice, just use crampons or, even better, ski, and everything would be perfect. However, we saw Shasta naked and completely covered with unstable scree.
Shasta is a stratovolcano consisted of the four cones. On this photo, it is easy to see the highest one and Shastina, the second one.
The main cone.
The photo made from Sandy Flats on September 28, 2015. Elevation of Sandy Flats is about 2 km. The place can be reached by car, so we driven here, set the camp, left our Californian friend for day rest and on September 29 started our route to the summit. We chose Avalanche Gulch route, actually, it was the only way at such conditions. This route is famous for its avalanches, but without snow, it was not a problem at all. Well, avalanches were substituted with rock falls.
Here is our route. It is not a GPS-track, just hand drow. According to the description, it is 11 miles round trip with elevation gain 2400 meters. We added at least 200 meters to elevation gain looking for the rout in some places, and some miles when we lost our way back in darkness. The whole thing took about 17 hours.
In the morning we waked up in the moonlight (it was the next night after the full moon and moon eclipse) and started to pack and make breakfast. And I immediately offered apologies to my Jetboil for often complains about boiling water in seven minutes instead of promised five. We didn’t take our own Jetboil (already too many stuff for flight) with a view to the stuff of our friend (he is local and arrived by car). He gave us his regular gas burner. It took us 30 minutes to boil water! Half an hour! I just forgot how it was before I bought the Jetbouil. It was bad, I should say.
Finally, we had our breakfast and started to move through the forest under the moonlight to the Horse Camp. From the Horse Camp, the trail led us among screes. Sun arose.
This is the Moon.
Around us the endless unstable scree. One step forward, two steps back.
Lake Helen. The altitude is about 3000 meters. It is a popular place for the camp (most people climb Shasta in two or three days). There is no real lake, just some small snow patch.
View from the lake:
View on the lake from the place above:
We should go to the right side on these red rocks.
Now it is time for horror. For lunch, I mean. Our friend gave us these sandwiches.
They can be kept THREE years at room temperature! It is very suspicious.
There are two small bags inside the big one.
In every bag there is small something with the note – DO NOT EAT!
I am hight recommend following the instruction.
We climbed to the red rocks. The ascent is very steep and unsteady. And also VERY dusty.
However, the colour is nice.
On the ridge (3900 meters) we found that on the other side was vertical cliff to the glacier with many crevasses, and red rocks were not reachable at this point.
View
We climbed the Tumb to check how to reach the red rocks.
Look for this nice red plate. It is covered with a thin layer of red crumbs and dust. You just flow with this layer of crumbs down to the vertical cliff below.
We found that if we go down to a hundred meters we can climb these red rocks. At 4000 meters of elevation losing hundred meters for nothing is just a shame.
After the red rocks, there is a smooth ascent to the top. Spiral top of Shastina below us.
And finally the crater, the only place with some snow.
The summit is on the opposite side of the crater.
Me on the summit.
And now down, down, down… We only reached Helen Lake when the dark came. After some wandering on the moraine, we finally came to the Horse Camp, and from here to our camp. Grabbed our friend from the fire and drove to the nearest hotel to wash away all this awful dust.
Don’t climb Shasta in the fall! It is very dusty and unpleasant. Climb it in the spring or early summer when it covered with nice deep pure snow!
