My partner and I have done a lot of hiking, backpacking, skiing, snowshoeing, and general adventuring, but as we set our sights on climbing Mt. Shasta, we realized that journeying into the snowy world above treeline would require a whole new kind of knowledge, skills, attitude, and gear.

Here are 8 steps that we recommend you take before climbing Mt. Shasta.

Step 1: Take an Avalanche Safety Seminar

Our first step was to take a free 2-hour avalanche safety seminar through our local REI. The seminar covered basics of avalanche risk assessment and response, from the perspectives of a victim and a rescuer. I would HIGHLY recommend this course to anyone thinking about climbing Mt. Shasta, unless you already have more advanced avalanche safety training–and even then it’s still a good refresher!

Step 2: Take a Mountaineering Basics Course

Our next step was to sign up for a 1-day mountaineering course through REI. There we had the opportunity to learn and practice self-arresting in each of the four standard positions, self-belaying, walking in balance while using crampons and a mountain axe, and various stepping techniques for climbing and down-climbing. A perk of this course is that REI provided the mountain axe, crampons, and helmets. This gave us a chance to try out some gear in the field before deciding what we wanted to purchase for our upcoming trip.

The course was helpful, but was too quick to give us a truly solid foundation in the skills we learned. It was only by going out and practicing these skills on our own that we really felt prepared for potential “slide for life” conditions.

Step 3: Figure Out Your Mountaineering Gear

We decided to purchase most of our own gear, rather than renting, because we loved our mountaineering practice outings so much that we plan for it to become a regular activity. For detailed reviews of gear purchased, check out our Gear Reviews section of Left Coast Hiker (we will be adding more gear soon!). We’ll also be adding a complete pack-list to this page shortly.

We already had all of the general backpacking gear needed, so we just had to obtain mountaineering-specific gear: mountain axes, crampons, and climbing helmets. We also splurged on some foot warmers to keep our feet warmer since we chose to climb in our heavy-duty backpacking boots rather than in warmer, insulated mountaineering boots.

If you decide to use heavy-duty backpacking boots rather than mountaineering boots, I HIGHLY recommend using foot warmers. For some reason that I can only blame on hypoxia, I didn’t use the foot warmers that I had hauled up the mountain with me, and my feet were FREEZING. My partner used hers and was fine. Also, make sure you test your boots with crampons in the snow before your climb. Doing this with rented crampons gave us a chance to figure out what features we wanted before spending a bunch of money to buy our own.

Much of the basic gear you’ll need you can rent from local mountaineering shops located in the town of Mt. Shasta. Two good options are The Fifth Season and Shasta Base Camp. You can also rent insulated mountaineering boots if your backpacking boots do not hold crampons well, or you want the extra insulation without having to spend hundreds of dollars on new mountaineering specific boots.

The one item that we felt was essential for safety (aside from crampons/mountain axe/helmet) was an avalanche kit: avalanche beacon, probe, and shovel. Beacons can be rented in the town of Mt. Shasta from The Fifth Season. Luckily, we live near UC Davis and the outdoor gear rental shop on campus, Outdoor Adventures, has avalanche beacons, probes, and shovels for rent as an avalanche package. The packages were reasonably priced at $16 for a Friday-Monday rental. You can reserve avalanche packages and other gear ahead of time by calling Outdoor Adventures one-week in advance at (530) 752-1995. We each carried one of these kits with us during our climb, and didn’t need to use them, but were able to climb with more peace of mind knowing that in an avalanche we wouldn’t be completely helpless.

Step 4: Practice, Practice, Practice

Learning through books and classes is great, but nothing beats the wisdom (ha, I flatter myself) and the muscle memory that can only be acquired through practice. We went up into the snow an additional two times to practice all of the skills we learned in the mountaineering basics course–self-arresting, self-belaying, walking in balance, etc.

One of our trips was a day trip that included a practice snow climb up Castle Peak near Donner Summit in the north Tahoe area. Our other practice trip was a 2-night backpacking and snow camping trip to Pyramid Peak via Lyon Lake in Desolation Wilderness so that in addition to practicing our new mountaineering skills, we could also get some additional experience snow camping, packing all of our new gear for a multi-night trip, and testing what clothing layers, food, etc we preferred cold, snowy conditions. We also rented avalanche beacons, probes, and shovels for this trip so we could become familiar with them.

Step 5: Read Everything

We purchased and read all of the relevant chapters (mountain safety, mountain axe use, crampon use, etc) in the book Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills–a must-read reference for any mountaineer.

We also read the and frequently checked the Mt. Shasta Avalanche Center climbing advisory webpage. This page features general information about each of the common routes up Mt. Shasta, along with notes from the climbing rangers on conditions and advisories. Along with the climbing advisory page, keep an eye on the Mt. Shasta Avalanche Center avalanche advisory webpage for up-to-date information on avalanche danger. We’d check this page, along with the local weather forecast, in order to get a rough sense of cause and effect of recent weather in the area and avalanche danger.

Finally, we read many, many blogs and first-hand accounts and trail guides from others who climbed Mt. Shasta, in addition to talking with friends and other outdoor adventurers who have made the climb. I suggest reading a few different accounts, as each one may provide a new tip or insight.

Step 6: Plan Your Route

As you may have already guessed, my hiking partner and I enjoy certain activities that have a some inherent risk associated with them–like mountaineering–but we like to do them as safely as possible. So, when we started researching a Mt. Shasta climb, safety was always one of our primary factors. After extensive research, we decided to make our first summit attempt via the Avalanche Gulch route. We chose this route for a few reasons:

1) Reduced “slide for life” risk compared to some of the more technical routes that follow ridge lines, such as Casaval Ridge (someday!) or Sargents Ridge. While those routes offer absolutely jaw-dropping views and have minimal avalanche risk, we didn’t want to bring climbing ropes or worry (too much) about falling to our deaths, so we decided to stick to one of the less technical gully or gulch approaches.

2) Comparable or reduced risk of risk of rock-fall throughout most of the route compared to other gully or gulch approaches (e.g. West Face Gully, Cascade Gulch). Along the actual hiking route we saw several places where rock had fallen (and where rock has fallen once, it is likely to fall again), but Helen Lake–where we set up overnight camp–is mostly safe from rock-fall. And in my opinion, there’s already enough to think about the night before a summit attempt without also worrying about rogue boulders crashing down on me in my sleep!

3) Low avalanche danger at the time of our hike. Please note that this is completely variable depending on the day, week, and year. A great resource is the Mt. Shasta Climbing Advisory webpage, which is updated once a week with the latest snow conditions. We checked this regularly leading up to our climb.

4) Easily accessible from the the Sacramento area.

We also had a “Plan B” in place: a second attempt planned up the West Face Gully, which shares many of the same attributes listed above for Avalanche Gulch, but has fewer people and a slightly more exposed basecamp area. We didn’t end up needing to use our “Plan B” weekend, but it made our climb infinitely more relaxing knowing we didn’t have to feel any pressure to make it to the summit (see Step 6 below!).

Step 7: Take the Pressure Off to Avoid “Summit Fever”

Our goal climbing Mt. Shasta was to have a great time exploring a new part of the wilderness and learn some really cool skills along the way. We promised ourselves and each other that getting to the summit was optional, but returning home healthy & whole was mandatory.

We knew from first-hand experience how easy it is for climbers of all levels to fall prey to summit fever, and how that can lead to dangerous decision-making when factors outside our control–weather, snow conditions, altitude sickness, etc.–come into play. In order to minimize the risk of falling prey to feeling like we had to summit, like this was our only chance, like it was now or never, like we had come too far just just turn back, we reserved multiple “Mt. Shasta weekends” in our calendars from the very beginning.

Simply knowing that we could easily come back the next weekend (or a weekend in the following month) made it much easier for us to simply enjoy the experience and be fully immersed in the present moment. If the weather didn’t cooperate, or the snow pack was poor, or my climbing partner or I experienced altitude sickness, it would be no problem–we’d just enjoy a nice day hike followed by a burger and beer in town, and then come back the next weekend.

Step 8: Enjoy the trip!!

By the time our first Mt. Shasta weekend finally rolled around, we were ready to go have some fun in the mountains!! To read more about our climb, check out our Mt. Shasta Trail Guide.