Melissa and I had a great weekend on Mt. Shasta with about 11 others including Grif and Adrian. The weather was incredible, not a cloud in the sky and hardly any wind. I did the climb wearing boots, crampons, tights, shell pants, a thin base layer top, lightweight gloves with lines, and two fleece shirts. I didn’t need a shell. It was so nice on top I stayed there almost an hour.

The road to Bunny Flat was closed at McBride campground @ 4900 ft. elevation. We had to start there Friday afternoon which added 2800 feet and three miles to our ascent. We camped about a mile form Horse Camp at 7100 feet the first night and on a col at about 9900 ft. elevation on Casaval Ridge overlooking Avalanche Gulch on the second night.

On summit day four people returned to the cars and brought them to Bunny Flat (the road opened at 10am Saturday). The rest of us left at 4:15am for the summit. We started with three teams of three roped together. Two teams each had one member struggling early. We gave those two people their own rope and the let them continue at their own pace. After that there were four teams: three teams of two and one team of three, and seven people summited. I was able to move much more quickly after we rearranged the teams. I felt strong the whole time with no headache and reached the top with my partner around 11;36. Melissa was also looking strong when her team reached the top at about 12:15. The view was amazing. Mt. Hood and all the snow capped Cascade range was shinning in the sun to the west and north and Mt Lassen towered above it’’s surroundings in to the south.

Several of the people at the summit were very tired and the Casaval Ridge route seemed like it would be harder to descend than it was to climb. As a group we chose to return to our camp at 9900 feet via the non technical Avalanche Gulch route. Some huge glissdaes and a tedious post-holing traverse took us back to camp. I could see that the last people to return were a least 45 minutes behind. We were just starting to break down the camp when Adrian reached us on the radio and suggested we wait. When the final people dragged themselves into camp at 4:30 the group consensus was to camp another night on the mountain and hike the short hike to Bunny Flat on Monday morning. We finally had a bit of wind kick up around 3am Monday morning and no one was up and about in camp until about 8am. Once we were off the ridge the wind stopped and we were HOT hiking down. We ate together in Mt. Shasta before everyone headed home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Community, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [Permalink]

Melissa and I had a great weekend on Mt. Shasta with about 11 others including Grif and Adrian. The weather was incredible, not a cloud in the sky and hardly any wind. I did the climb wearing boots, crampons, tights, shell pants, a thin base layer top, lightweight gloves with lines, and two fleece shirts. I didn’t need a shell. It was so nice on top I stayed there almost an hour.

The road to Bunny Flat was closed at McBride campground @ 4900 ft. elevation. We had to start there Friday afternoon which added 2800 feet and three miles to our ascent. We camped about a mile form Horse Camp at 7100 feet the first night and on a col at about 9900 ft. elevation on Casaval Ridge overlooking Avalanche Gulch on the second night.

On summit day four people returned to the cars and brought them to Bunny Flat (the road opened at 10am Saturday). The rest of us left at 4:15am for the summit. We started with three teams of three roped together. Two teams each had one member struggling early. We gave those two people their own rope and the let them continue at their own pace. After that there were four teams: three teams of two and one team of three, and seven people summited. I was able to move much more quickly after we rearranged the teams. I felt strong the whole time with no headache and reached the top with my partner around 11;36. Melissa was also looking strong when her team reached the top at about 12:15. The view was amazing. Mt. Hood and all the snow capped Cascade range was shinning in the sun to the west and north and Mt Lassen towered above it’’s surroundings in to the south.

Several of the people at the summit were very tired and the Casaval Ridge route seemed like it would be harder to descend than it was to climb. As a group we chose to return to our camp at 9900 feet via the non technical Avalanche Gulch route. Some huge glissdaes and a tedious post-holing traverse took us back to camp. I could see that the last people to return were a least 45 minutes behind. We were just starting to break down the camp when Adrian reached us on the radio and suggested we wait. When the final people dragged themselves into camp at 4:30 the group consensus was to camp another night on the mountain and hike the short hike to Bunny Flat on Monday morning. We finally had a bit of wind kick up around 3am Monday morning and no one was up and about in camp until about 8am. Once we were off the ridge the wind stopped and we were HOT hiking down. We ate together in Mt. Shasta before everyone headed home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Community, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [Permalink]