On March 27, 2010 I drove from Palo Alto to Portland, Oregon, to visit my friend Mike Vermeulen for Spring Break. On the way I stopped by Mount Shasta for some snow climbing. I arrived a little before noon and got one of the only parking spots left.
Shasta was stunning, covered deeply with snow, a huge contrast to when I climbed it back in 2007 (http://www.halfaya.org/leo/hiking/Shasta/)
This was the my first chance to use my new snowshoes (MSR Lightning Ascent 22), and they worked beautifully. I started around 12:10 and just followed existing tracks that seemed headed toward the mountain.
There were a lot of people there, but mostly to ski, sled and snowmobile near the parking lot. Once I got just a few minutes away I saw almost no one.
The weather was absolutely perfect. I wore normal hiking pants, and soon stripped down to just my tshirt. There was a strong wind higher up and I had to put my coat and hat on, but I never needed gloves.
Avalanche Gulch, the easiest route up, is in the middle, but due to the namesake danger people apparently mostly climb the ridge to the left (Casaval Ridge) or right (Green Butte/Sargents Ridge) in the winter. The tracks I was following ended up going to Green Butte.
Some scenery as I was going up.
Zooming in.
Looking up at the mountain.
You can make out tracks in Avalanche Gulch in this photo, so clearly people were going that way too.
I figured I'd hike until about 2pm or so, or until I reached some significant stopping point. Both happened at the same time. I reached Green Butte, where the route becomes more technical, and found some other climbers had left their snowshoes and ski poles here. The poles in the foreground are mine.
The route gets more interesting from this point on, but I wasn't prepared to go further. I'd reached about 9300 feet (starting at 6900 feet).
You can see ski tracks to the right.
Zooming in back down to Bunny Flat.
Beautiful scenery including Siskiyou Lake.
Going down the steep sections on snowshoes was more difficult, but I managed to do it without taking them off. There weren't really tracks on the upper part of my route so I tried to remember just show I came but ended up taking a slightly different route down.
Back down to Bunny Flat.
One more look at the mountain. Clouds had come in but didn't descend on the mountain itself.
I forgot my GPS watch but used my handheld GPS to record the route down. This is it. The hike was about 2.3 miles each way, gaining 2400 feet. I went up in about 1:50 and down in about 1:15. Less than a third of the entire climb to the summit! It was enormous fun, and I'd love to go back later this year and try a summit climb again. It should be really fun in weather and snow conditions.
