Up

Over the weekend I fulfilled a dream. Ever since I saw Mt Shasta for the first time almost ten years ago, I've wanted to climb it. Yesterday morning at 7:30am, I stood on top of it.

Mount Shasta, both the mountain and the town of the same name, sit about five hours north of San Francisco close to the California-Oregon border. We arrived at the town of Mount Shasta late afternoon Saturday after renting crampons and ice axes at the Berkeley REI in the morning and attempting to drive through Lassen Volcanic National Park on the way there only to discover that that road is still closed for the winter. So we had to drive around. Note to self: call ahead next time.

Sunday midday, after a big breakfast, we parked the car at the Bunny Flat trailhead, elevation 6,950 ft, and started up to Helen Lake at 10,600 ft where we would be camping. The six hour hike up was wonderful but trying. The sun was hot and very intense reflecting off the snow, which was melty enough to make climbing in it slow and a lot of work. You can see Helen Lake up above you on the mountain about two hours before you get there and it looks a lot closer than it is.

I was thrilled when we finally arrived at Helen Lake and the small tent city that had assembled there. We had learned at the ranger station that there were over 170 permits out for Saturday night and a girl we talked with on our way up and her way down confirmed the story saying she had counted 80 tents. Happily, there were many fewer tents and people on Sunday night and we got a good spot right at the edge of the ridge.

After a dinner of trail mix, raw almonds and granola, we tucked in for the night at 7:30pm. This was when I discovered that my sleeping bag is not warm enough for camping on snowpack in a tent that is mostly made of screen instead of tent. As it turned out, though, it didn't really matter since I wasn't going to be spending all that much time in it. We woke up a little after 1am and by 1:30am we were ready: crampons strapped onto our boots, ice axes in gloved hands, pockets lined with Clif bars and a few emergency Snickers bars just in case. Off we went up the mountain.

There's something about climbing a wall of snow in the dark at 2am that is just kind of magical. There was no moon and it was very dark. All the climbers were wearing headlamps to light their way and looking across the face of the mountain you could see little pods of bobbing lights where people were climbing.

At dawn, we came over the first ridge and were rewarded with some spectacular views of the sunrise as the sun came up on the far side of the mountain. We were surprised for a moment to see another large mountain looming on the horizon until we realized that it was actually Shasta's shadow cast by the rising sun on the landscape below.

Three false summits and more than two hours later, we were both in tears as we finally arrived at the true summit. It was extraordinary. The climb had been more exhausting - both physically and mentally - than I had expected and I was thrilled and relieved to have finally made it to the top. Amazing. We paused a moment there to enjoy the view from 14,162 feet and savor the sweetness of finally realizing a long-held and hard-earned goal.

Coming down is supposed to be the fun part because you glissade, which is basically a fancy word for sliding down the mountain on your butt. If I ever doubted the value of sleds, I don't anymore.

We were back at the car about 24 hours after we had parked it. We calculated that of those 24 hours, we'd spent 16 of them climbing (12 hours on the ascent, 4 hours on the descent). Neither of us was in any shape to be operating a moving vehicle so we took turns driving home and at one point stopped at a rest stop and napped in the grass for a little while until the bugs got to be too much. Then we got in the car and drove the rest of the way home.


Climbing a wall of snow in the dark
Climbing a wall of snow at dawn
Shasta's shadow at dawn
Happy, and cold, at the top