Mount Shasta, CA

After binging in Sonoma for a couple of days we headed to Mount Shasta, CA to climb a monster of a mountain (7,000 feet elevation gain, all snow) - no easing back into it for us!

The rest in Sonoma was great, but perhaps a little too great. It was a little disappointing making dinner in the parking lot of the trailhead as we remembered all the excellent food and wine we had the previous few days (we're no Michael Chiarello, but not bad anyway).

We slept in the morning of the hike as the first day was not very long. We left the trailhead (6,900') at 10:30am and made it to Helen Lake (10,500') by 2:30pm. Since it was fourth of July weekend, the mountain was packed and there were tons of people camping at Helen Lake (the number below doubled by the end of the day).

During the day, it was incredibly hot with the sun beating down. We ate some food, set up camp, and melted some snow for water. We wanted to get to sleep early since we were planning to wake up around 2:30/3:00am to get a nice alpine start for the summit, but it was so hot that we could not sleep until the sun went down.

We got ready for bed and laid down in our tent around 7pm. It was still 75+ degrees at the time. The sun went down below the mountain at around 7:15pm and we watched the thermometer drop 1 degree per minute for the next 30 minutes. By about 9:30pm, by which it was completely dark, it was 30 degrees.

Pete had a lovely sleep in his super warm sleeping bag laying atop his warm Thermarest pad. Emily, however, probably slept about 30 minutes total as she was freezing the entire night (maybe time to invest in some new equipment). So when the alarm went off at 2:30am, Emily was quick to get us up and moving. We started on the climb at 3:30am. It seemed like everyone was ready for the early start as almost all the tents were lit up and people moving. It was still about 30 degrees at the time and wind blowing.

Emily putting on crampons at 3am

The trail of climbers just behind us at the start of the climb

There was one guy who was leading another person up the mountain who commented to Pete, "Is that your partner over there? He's a strong climber!" Too many clothes to tell male from female, but it was just enough motivation to keep our pace up the mountain. When the guy learned that we were from North Carolina he said, "Wow, you guys are really good climbers for a couple of flatlanders." It was not too difficult of a climb, but it was very monotonous on the snow, with the same move over and over again, making it seem longer and harder than it was. Even so we made it to the summit in under 4.5 hours.

It was really windy and cold the whole way up. Even once the sun came up it was still cold since we kept gaining elevation. We bundled up really well so that we were not too cold (except for Pete's feet in the beginning) as long as we did not stand still for too long. We each wore two pairs of wool socks (Emily also had some toe warmers which might be why her feet stayed warmer than Pete's), two pairs of pants, five layers on top (including a fleece and hard shell), a wool hat, helmet, a neck/face scarf, and two pairs of gloves. We wore this the whole way to the summit. I checked the thermometer at the summit - 31.8 degrees at 8:07am (without the wind chill).

Pete finding a break in the wind at the summit

As a mentioned before, it was a popular weekend and shortly after we got the the summit, tons of others arrived too. There were some large groups who were loud and silly, so we did not spend too long at the top, before heading down.

We had hoped to glissade back down the camp, but it as it was only 8:30am when we started descending so it was still too icy, which would have made the glissade too fast and dangerous. So we had to walk down most of the way and only got to glissade the last bit. It took us about 2 hours to get down. By the time we got down at about 10:30, the loss of elevation and the rise of the sun turned the temperature to about 75 or 80 degrees again! So we went from freezing to burning in no time at all. We leisurely took down our camp and then headed back to the trailhead, which took another 2 hours.

So all in all, the hike was shorter than Mt Whitney, but the cold and the monotony made it seem longer at times.

To celebrate the climb, we decided to pop open a bottle of champagne that we picked up in Sonoma. You didn't expect us to give up that lifestyle so quickly did you?!