Climbing Mount Shasta

Topped by snow and glaciers, Mount Shasta rises up above everything else when you approach it from the north.

As soon as I saw it, I wanted to be up there climbing Mount Shasta. We were coming south from Oregon, after driving across the country from Michigan. A detour to northern California before heading home seemed like a good idea to both of us.

"I wonder if we could climb it?" I asked. John just nodded his head quietly, as though agreeing not to the climb, but to the fact that he was wondering the same thing. I checked the map and found that the peak of Mount Shasta is 14,162 feet above sea level. I liked the idea of climbing that high.

"Have you ever climbed a mountain Steve," John asked me. I thought about it for a while before answering, "Not really. A lot of hills though."

Mount Shasta City

"Oh yes," the old woman at the visitor's center told us, "there are people climbing Mount Shasta all the time." John pointed out the glaciers on the map she had given us. "Oh yes, well, did you bring crampons and ice axes?" John looked at me, and I could only say, "I've heard of these things."

We did have some gear: backpacks, sleeping bags, and a tent. John had good hiking boots, but mine were more like high-top shoes. Neither of us had ever used crampons or an ice axe before, so we went the few blocks across town to see what the guy at the climbing store had to say.

"Have you done any climbing before?" he asked us.

"A little," I answered, remembering the buildings we used to climb on as teenagers, and the rocks we had recently scrambled up in Oregon. I figured we were ready for Mount Shasta.

"Well, you can't put crampons on those boots," he said to John, "and you sure can't put them on those," he told me, shaking his head at my shoes. Crampons apparently need rigid boots - our mountaineering lesson of the day. We could rent the crampons, but only if we rented real mountaineering boots also. "And you'll need ice axes, of course." I felt a pain in my wallet.

Backpacking On Mount Shasta (Too Poor For Climbing)

A speeding ticket in North Dakota had strained the budget, and Mount Shasta was already a detour from the route and the budget. We could, we decided, hike up the mountain and do a little backpacking. Still, I had to ask, "Do people climb Shasta without gear?" The store owner realized that the sale was lost.

"It's been done," he answered impatiently.

"It's been done," I reminded John as we drove up the road to Mount Shasta. He didn't argue, which I took as a good sign. I watched the Pine trees go by, and absentmindedly poked a finger through a hole in my shoe.

"Old Ski Bowl Trail head," John said. I looked over at the sign. "7,900 feet." We were at the trail head, along with forty other cars, and it was still early enough to hit the trail.

Mount Shasta Poop Bags

We read the sign and looked at the registration forms. We had a decision to make. There was a $10 fee if we were going to be hiking or climbing above "Horse Camp," at 8,400 feet. John pointed to a bin full of paper bags. Each had a handful of cat litter in it, and then a plastic bag to put it in. These were for carrying our excrement off the mountain, a requirement above 10,000 feet. That clinched it. We put $10 each in the envelope and dropped it in the slot. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to poop in a bag in the mountains. I took two for myself, in case of good luck.

An easy trail leads to Horse Camp, where there is a hut and a natural spring. We filled our water bottles. The day hikers looked up at the mountain through their cameras, while inside the hut the climbers cooked noodles and discussed weather reports. They looked at my shoes and smiled at each other when I mentioned that we might be climbing Mount Shasta in the morning. We started hiking up the trail, which was finally getting steeper and rockier. The trees ended at about 8,500 feet, leaving only grasses, flowers, and other tundra plants.

Wind And Rain At Helen Lake

There is no lake. For that matter, there is no trail, which gets lost somewhere in the rocks just before the steep climb up to the "lake," Helen lake is just a more-or-less level area of snow and ice. At the edge, overlooking Horse Camp far below, there are dusty clearings in the rocks where the climbers camp. We found an empty spot and set up camp. The wind was howling. We were at 10,440 feet.

About the time it started to rain, I realized that it might have been a bad idea to talk John into bringing only a tarp, instead of the tent. The edges of the tarp pulled loose in the wind again and again, until we gave up and left one side pinned down by heavy rocks, while we wrapped the other side around us. Dust blew in and covered us, despite the tight wrap and rain. Perhaps I was enjoying the adventure more than John, who was very quiet. In any case, I talked until he fell asleep.

Climbing Mount Shasta

"Apparently they start climbing very early," John grumbled. It was dark, but there were lights and noise from the other tents around us. I stood up, and I and saw lights on the mountain a thousand feet higher. It was 5:30 a.m. Hmm...climbers start early. With that new insight, we packed up our day packs, hid our big backpacks in some rocks, and stepped onto the ice. Helen Lake was a mile of ups and downs, through sun-dished ice. Then we reached the loose rock at the base of a steep slope, in Avalanche Gully. We started climbing Mount Shasta. an hour later, we quit.

"I can't do it," John gasped. "Can't get enough air." We were at about 11,000 feet, and we knew that there was less oxygen up high, but this was the first time John had actually been this high hiking or climbing. I had driven higher in Colorado, but apparently that wasn't a strenuous enough activity to notice the thinner air. I noticed it here. We both did. We sat down and I rested for a minute.

"Are you sure," I asked. He was, but I wasn't. It was light now, and John didn't see any problem hiking down the four hours to the car alone. I would go on to the summit, and then come back down to the road by evening. I had to continue climbing. Mount Shasta was my first mountain, and I hadn't even used the poop bag yet.

Altitude Sickness

The "Red Bank" is a long red line of broken cliffs above avalanche gully. I scrambled, climbed, slipped on ice, and eventually found a way up and over. Then there were long steep slopes covered in loose rocks, with a few bamboo sticks marking the way up. This is where my route converged with that of the other climbers, who had gone up the snow-slope route with their crampons and ice axes.

After much climbing, I finally made it to the top, which was called Misery hill, because it isn't actually the top of Mount Shasta. It just seems like it should be. There was still a mile of snow to cross, and then more rocky terrain. The snow field had three-foot-high peaks covering it, like a huge meringue pie.

I rested a moment, and realized I'd been hearing a new sound. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! It was the inside of my head, which had never been so loud before. Hmm...interesting. I got used to the noise and pain after an hour or so.

Then I got used to the smell of sulfur. Mount Shasta, it turns out, is a volcano. When John Muir climbed it more than a hundred years earlier, he had to huddle next to the hot sulfur gas vents to survive a night near the peak. He was alternately freezing and burning. 

At The Top Of Mount Shasta

"So this is the top?" I mumbled lamely to the guy who had just told me the John Muir story. Unfortunately, clouds, and smoke from forest fires, obscured the view in every direction. Nonetheless, it felt good to be so high, and when I looked down to the east, I saw my first glacier, a few hundred feet below.

"You can write your name in the register over there," the guy told me, pointing to something in the rocks. There are guest books on top of mountains? Another lesson for the day. I signed in, wrote some comment, and started down the mountain.

Sun cups, or whatever they call those depressions in the snow, fill with water in the warm afternoon sun - another discovery. I'd climb out of one ten-foot-wide bowl and slide into the water in the bottom of the next. This was the pattern until I reached the ankle-twisting mile of rocks piled up below Helen Lake. Climbing down, I realized, is more difficult than climbing up, or at least more dangerous. In any case, I was soon on the easy trail.

My headache disappeared, I reached the road, and by evening we were driving towards Michigan. Mount Shasta was hidden in the clouds and smoke behind us. Oh, and yes, I had used the poop bag. Somewhere around 11,500 feet, I believe, which I remembered when I was looking through my pack. I told John to pull over at the nearest garbage can.

You may also want to visit the page, "California Hiking."

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