Climbing Mt. Shasta has been a dream of mine ever since discovering tree-climbing in elementary school. I fell in love with the excitement of climbing up, up, up; of watching the yard beneath me grow smaller and smaller; of emerging above the roofs of neighboring houses, above other trees, above power-lines, above birds’ nests, to a world of unfiltered sunshine and clouds and mountains circling the horizon.

One mountain peak in particular stood out to my tree-topping childhood self: Mt. Shasta. Growing up just a couple hours south of the mountain, it cut an impossible-to-miss figure on the northern horizon, towering above everything in a several hundred mile radius. Author Joaquin Miller described the mountain as “Lonely as God and white as a winter moon…the great white tower of some ancient and eternal wall…a shining pyramid in mail of everlasting frosts and ice.”

“Someday,” I would think as I gazed in its direction from the top of the tallest tree in my parents’ yard.

“Someday” took a backseat to school and extracurriculars, and eventually to new jobs and new cities and dividing vacations between two families. But life has a funny way of presenting us with opportunities, and when I moved back to Northern California years after first gazing upon its icy slopes from atop my parents’ tallest tree, I knew the time had finally arrived!

Mt. Shasta Preparation

Though our actual climb took place in May, our preparation began in January. If you’re interested in potentially climbing Mt. Shasta, or are curious about the process, check out our page on knowledge, skills, and gear required for this climb.

The Climb

Bunny Flat Trailhead to Horse Camp

We arrived at the Bunny Flat trail-head around 10:30am on Saturday morning, after spending a relaxing Friday night at “Mom & Dad’s B&B” in Redding, CA. We did final gear checks in the parking lot, took a few photos to document the moment–photos which, I should mention, did NOT include Mt. Shasta, on account of the entire mountain being shrouded in clouds–and then around 11am set off on our merry way.

There was no snow at the trailhead, but as we hiked towards Horse Camp, we started to encounter patches of snow. I was happy to have my hiking poles during this stretch since the snow sometimes was slick on the trail, but too patchy for crampons and not steep enough for an ice axe to be very easy to use.

Horse Camp to Helen Lake

By the time we reached Horse Camp the snow consistently blanketed the trail. We stopped for a few minutes at the benches outside the Horse Camp cabin to eat a quick snack, fill our water bags at the mountain spring, chat with some of the other climbers, and take advantage of the pit toilets.

Speaking of toilets: Mt. Shasta is a solid waste pack-out zone, meaning that what comes out must come back down the mountain with you in plastic baggies filled with wood chips (also known as a WAG bag). While I’m all about leaving the wilderness pristine and fully support this policy in areas where there is high human impact, I also am not a huge fan of carrying baggies of poo up and down the mountain, so the pit toilets were a “must” in our itinerary, and thankfully prevented us from having to carry extra unwanted weight!

Up until Horse Camp, the terrain was pretty familiar to many other hikes we’ve done–a visible trail winding through terrain speckled with mixed trees and granite. Once we passed Horse Camp, however, we quickly climbed out of the trees and into a world of snow and sun and clouds and mountain.

As the mountain became steeper we stopped to put on our crampons and climbing helmets and switch our hiking poles out for our mountain axes. At that point I felt like we had truly arrived!

The clouds were numerous and fast-moving. One moment we’d see the mountain peeking out ahead of us, and the next it (and we) would be completely shrouded in giant, cold, roiling clouds of white and grey. After being trapped in high elevation electrical storms in the past–one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, by the way–Gadget and I kept a constant eye on the clouds and were ready to head back or bunker down if the weather took a turn for the worse.

We passed climbers on the way down from the summit who told us that despite the billowing clouds blocking our view, the weather was crystal clear on the summit without even a whisper of wind. Encouraged, we continued up through the clouds until, after much huffing and puffing, we reached Helen Lake–which in the words of fellow hiker/blogger Stefanie Notte, could more accurately be described as “Helen No Lake”.

Though we saw quite a few tents pitched at 50/50 Flat (about 9,400 ft) on our approach to Helen Lake, we had been warned by a Mt. Shasta climbing ranger that 50/50 Flat isn’t as sheltered from rock-fall as Helen Lake is, and in addition to wanting to be able rest easy, we also wanted to knock an extra 1,000 vertical feet out of the way before setting up camp.

We dug out a flat area for our tent on the hill-side, waited about 10 minutes for the snow to re-freeze, pitched our tent, buried our tent stakes dead-man style (horizontal, instead of vertical) deeeeeeep in the snow in hopes that our tent wouldn’t fly away if a wind came up, and then packed as much snow as we could all the way around our tent.

It started snowing on us pretty much immediately after we set up our tent, so we ate a quick dinner of trailmix, crackers, and peanut-butter (we didn’t feel like taking the time to make a dehydrated meal), then made sure all our gear was prepped for our planned 2AM ascent before taking shelter in our tent for the evening.

It was still mostly light outside when we crawled into our sleeping bags, but we wanted to get as much rest as we could. Thankfully I was able to fall asleep reasonably quickly–Gadget wasn’t as lucky–and dozed lightly until about 1AM, when I heard the wind and snow start to taper off.

A note about night: because we knew the temperatures would drop to well below freezing, we slept with our water bags in the tent to keep them from freezing solid. I slid mine between my sleeping bag and my sleeping pad, and Gadget slept with hers in her actual sleeping bag. Neither of our water bladders froze, which was good, but the water was FREEZING cold all night and made it hard to sleep well. Next time we will bring Nalgene or metal bottles (which can hold hot water) instead of Camel-back/Platypus water bladders (which I don’t think are supposed to hold boiling water), and regardless of how much water we have left from the day before, we’ll boil water to put in the bottles before bed. This way, the water will help warm us at night instead of making us freeeeezing cold!

Helen Lake to Red Banks

I woke up around 1AM–an hour before the alarm on my watch was scheduled to go off–and heard nothing but silence. The breeze had died down and the snow had stopped falling, and aside from the sight of a couple lonely headlamps slowly bobbing their way up the mountain above us, all was completely still and dark.

After debating with Gadget about whether we wanted to try for the summit or stay curled up in our relatively warm sleeping bags in deference to the temperamental weather, we decided what the heck! The snow was momentarily stopped, so we might as well make a go of it.

By the time we got up and were ready to embark it was around 2AM. We put on every layer we had with us, ate a breakfast of rock-hard Clif Bars (rock hard on account of being mostly frozen), checked our packs to make sure we had everything we’d need, and then set off towards Red Banks.

Before we had even taken two steps from our tent, it started snowing again. We decided to continue cautiously forward despite the snow, but to turn back if either of us felt unsafe.

Climbing up the mountain in the middle of the night, in the falling snow, was a completely otherworldly experience. There was no moon and the cloud cover and snow coming down was so thick that much of the time we could only see a tunnel of light cast by our headlight beams a few feet in front of us. It was easy to slip into an almost meditative tranquility through the “axe, step, step” pattern of walking in balance, and to let any other thoughts fall away from my mind as I focused on the placement of each step and sensation of each breath.

As the sun started to creep towards the horizon and the sky began to lighten, we were able to make out the shape of Red Banks emerging above us through the dim and the snow. Shortly after dawn the snow stopped falling and the clouds began to clear–which was a relief because the climbing ranger had told everyone camped at Helen Lake the night before that if visibility is poor when you get to Red Banks, TURN AROUND because the odds of even the most experienced mountaineers getting disoriented above Red Banks when visibility is low, and consequently trying to descend down the wrong part of the mountain, are too great.

After viewing Red Banks and The Thumb from a distance for the past day, they looked enormous up close!

There isn’t much to say about this part of the climb, other than that it was amazingly gorgeous, and so cold that even after blowing air in our Platypus/Camel-back reservoir tubes after every drink, any remaining droplets of water would freeze solid in under two minutes–blocking the mouthpiece/tube and making it impossible to drink. I had to keep my mouthpiece tucked into my jacket to minimize this, but even so there were some times when I had to drink from Gadget’s water system (and one disconcerting time when both of ours were blocked for a few minutes).

My advice? Bring a few Nalgene water bottles instead of a water bladder system. Or, at the very least, bring one or two Nalgenes or other larger bottles to supplement your water bladder, in case the tube freezes solid. It’s much more difficult for the water in a Nalgene to freeze solid than it is for water in a narrow tube to freeze. Plus, then you can put it in your sleeping bag filled with hot water the night before for an automatic bed-warmer. 🙂

Red Banks to Summit

After we climbed through Red Banks–which was steep and extremely icy–we went up another incline before reaching Misery Hill.

Misery Hill wasn’t nearly as miserable as I had imagined. Yes, it was a long slog, but no worse than many of the slopes we had already successfully ascended. The key here is to remember that the summit is NOT at the top of Misery Hill (and in fact you can’t even see it until you’ve reached the top of Misery Hill). You still have a little way to go once you reach the top of the hill–but by that point you’re almost there!

Once you reach the top of Misery Hill you have one last gentle incline before you get to the final steep pitch. We saw quite a few people stopped here to rest, snack on Clif Bars, and re hydrate for the final push.

 

Reaching the summit, especially after thinking for the majority of our climb that we’d have to turn back due to weather, was a totally surreal moment. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I felt like I was on top of the world!

We stayed just long enough to take a few photos, shed a tear at the sheer beauty, and chat for a few minutes with a guide who had led a group of three climbers around the bergshrund by The Thumb. However, we were both freezing cold and the wind was starting to whip us like crazy, so we only stayed a handful of minutes before beginning our descent.

Summit to Helen Lake to Bunny Flat Trailhead

I frequently wish, when standing on top of a mountain, that I could zipline or batsuit or somehow slide on my butt all the way down. Well, the amazing thing about Mt. Shasta is that my dreams for the most part CAME TRUE! Mt. Shasta boasts the longest uninterrupted alpine ski run in the continental United States, and once we down-climbed past Red Banks (which is too steep and slick to be able to safely slide down), we pretty much slid on our butts the whole way back down to Helen Lake, where we packed up our tent and ate a quick lunch. And then we slid on our butts again most of the way from Helen Lake to just above Horse Camp.

The technical term for this is glissading. The non-technical term is FUN.

A word of warning, though–if you don’t weigh a whole lot, like me, it can be hard to dig into the snow with enough weight on your mountain axe to slow your speed. I had a few terrifying moments where I kept picking up speed and wasn’t able to slow down, and even when I went into the self-arrest position, I still kept rocketing down the mountain. During one of my slides, my axe unceremoniously caught on a rock or piece of ice under the snow and yanked out of my hand (which was still regaining mobility & strength from a multiple-bone break a year prior). Thankfully my partner and I had both tied climbing-grade webbing to our axes to act as a leash, which caught on my wrist and kept me from an uncontrolled slide.

One other word of warning related to self-belaying down a mountain: wear pants that you don’t mind wearing a hole in! By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, both my partner and I had holes in the bottoms of our pants and ended up needing to replace them. We had both brought foam sit-pads that we had planned to use on the descent, but in the moment we decided not to use them because we had never practiced with them didn’t want to risk losing any control during our descent.

When we eventually made it back down the Bunny Flat Trailhead, my parents and their guide dog puppy-in-training Destiny were there waiting for us with big smiles and a camera. We shed some layers, used the pit toilets at the trailhead, loaded our gear, and then drove to the town of Mt. Shasta for a tasty dinner before continuing on (with Gadget and me passed out in the back seat) to Redding for another night at “Mom and Dad’s B&B.” (We have the best support crew!!)

All-in-all it was an amazing trip, and we were able to do it in a regular weekend without taking any time off. (Friday night in Redding, Saturday night at Helen Lake, Sunday night in Redding, and a very early morning to make it to work by 8AM on Monday.)  I would highly, highly recommend this climb to anyone interested in mountaineering. It does require some advance preparation and knowledge, and like all outdoor activities it has some inherit risks that you must account for, but it was an AMAZING, beautiful, and exciting trip, and I can’t wait to go back!