Mt. Shasta

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John, Juli, Brielle, and I climbed Shasta via Avy Gulch. We decided to do it as a 2-day trip, camping at Horse Camp so that we could cut 2 miles off the distance on summit day. The reduced distance was nice, but probably not completely necessary. 

Camp at Horse Camp

On Friday a.m., Juli, Brielle, and I left SLO around 6 and made it to Mt. Shasta by mid-afternoon. We made a random stop at Poncho & Lefkowitz's gourmet hot dogs and mexican food stand then headed to The Fifth Season to pick up rental gear. The guys at the stop advised me that avy beacons were completely unneccesary because it had been a few weeks since there had been any snow, and everything was completely consolidated. By 3:00, we had driven up to the trailhead, packed up, and started walking. The two hour hike to Horse Camp took us about 1.5 hours. We followed the "winter trail". John hiked in that night to meet us. We made a camp marker and texted him a picture (we had intermittent cell service) so that he could find where we were. The spring had been dug out from under a few feet of snow, so we were able to get fresh water without having to melt snow! So nice. 

Walking up the lower part of the mountain early in the morning.

Almost to the top of the Red Banks

The next morning we were up and hiking by 1:15 a.m. There were quite a few climbers out at that point, so the routefinding was trivial: just follow the lights up the hill. We stopped at Helen Lake to put on crampons then continued up into the gulch. After much suffering and feeling like the red rocks were never getting closer, we reached the top of Red Banks at 6:00. I never felt nervous about the steepness of the slope 35+ degrees feels pretty comfortable, a lot like walking up a black diamond ski run. We left the top of Red Banks at 6:45 and headed for the summit. As we had been sitting, I watched clouds collect onto the route ahead. We hiked up into them and noticed that many parties stopped to see what would happen, and one or two even turned back. We just continued on at a steady pace and within 30 minutes it was perfectly clear again. All in all, we had amazing weather. There was almost no wind and the temperatures were pleasant. Apparently there had been 100+ mile winds the previous weekend and no one summited. We were lucky. We got to the top of Misery Hill around 7:45 then stopped for another break. Brielle wasn't feeling great, so she and Juli sat and waited while John and I hustled to the summit; about 20 mins. from the top of Misery Hill. After that, John and Juli summited while I sat with Brielle. 

Taking a break at the top of the Red Banks

Climbing up above Thumb Rock

The weather rolled in

Climbing up Misery Hill

Up Misery Hill

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Summit in view

John and me at the top

Looking north from the summit

Back at Thumb Rock

We enjoyed a leisurely walk / glissade back to camp in the perfect weather. Juli and Brielle turned out to be natural glissading pros. When we got back to Horse Camp at noon, John took a nap while we packed up camp, then we walked the 2 miles back to the car the same way we came. 

We spent that evening in the town of Mt. Shasta at Juli's Aunt and Uncle's house. They were kind enough to make us dinner and put us up in their guest house.