This is not something I would blurt out lightly. Certainly not at 12,800 feet. And most definitely not while clinging to the 35 degree bare slope of a windy, freezing, snow and ice covered volcano. But when you gotta go...
Lesson #1
ALWAYS go Number 1 AND Number 2 on the morning of the big climb.
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It was an awesome weekend to climb Mt. Shasta, a majestic 14,162' volcano near Redding, CA that rises up out of the surrounding flat lands like a science fair project. There was fresh snowfall from a week earlier, sunny clear blue skies for all three days of our trip, and a full moon for our 2 AM start on the day of the climb. We could not have asked for better conditions.
Mt. Shasta is in Northern Northern California. It may as well be Oregon.
You can see how Shasta is its own little cone of a volcano rising up in the middle of nowhere.
I went with Anne, Gustavo, Hannah, and Ted, friends that I met while taking the Sierra Club's Wilderness Travel Course (WTC) a couple years ago. We flew up to Redding, and drove another 60 miles to the town of Mt. Shasta, a pretty little mountain town that seems to be a haven for hardcore skiers, climbers, and hippies. We saw lots of crystal shops and learned more than I wanted to about vortexes and imaginary underground civilizations. One cool thing about this town was that all their water comes directly from an underground spring untreated. The hotel tap water was some of the best damn water I've had anywhere.
On Friday morning, we met up with our guides Dane (total surfer dude / ski bum persona), Lynette (a little piston of a girl, Berkeley grad who's here to chase her dream of working in the outdoors), and Zeb (a new guide, used to work at Squaw Valley who was "shadowing" our group), as well as another climber, Mark from Kentucky. After gear check, we drove up to Bunny Flats (6,800') and began our climb up to high camp at Hidden Valley (9,300').
Bunny Flats, the start of our hike in.
Gustavo, Mark, Anne, Hannah, Ted
View of Shasta on the hike in
Breaking trail on the hike in
WHOOMP!
Think of a slamming car door on a nice solid Mercedes. That's NOT a sound you want to hear when you're on snow. It means that a slab of snow had just settled on the layer beneath it, which means it's not really “sticking” to the rest of the slope all that well. And if you were to have been standing on that slab, you would have felt the ground beneath you drop a few inches. These are warning signs of potential avalanche, and we heard and felt both as we were climbing up to high camp. As soon as it happened, Dane ordered us to quickly traverse across the open slope that we were on into an area that had more trees to help anchor the snow in place. Even though I never felt any sense of eminent danger, I also knew it was not a time to dilly dally. I hauled ass across that slope!
That one incident on the first day ended up changing the entire trip, with the guides making decisions on the fly to specifically to avoid threat of avalanche. Instead of camping at Hidden Valley, we ended camping on the ridge above it. Instead of walking out of Hidden Valley straight up the West Face on summit day, we ended up climbing part of Cascaval Ridge, then traversing over to the West Face. Several sightings of giant slabs that had cracked on some of the larger gullies only reinforced the potentially dangerous conditions.
See that dark ridge line pointing directly SW up to the summit? We climbed the West Face, which is to the left of that.
We ended up camping at around 9,500', on a ridge plateau overlooking Hidden Valley. Those of you who've never tried it might think snow camping is a bit crazy. And I wouldn't necessarily disagree. Obviously, it's cold. Very cold. That means you constantly have to worry about your stuff freezing at night. Like your boots. Or your water. Or your food. Or your camera. So how do we deal with that? Believe it or not, we put all of that crap in our nice warm sleeping bags and crawl in! You should have seen my bag on both nights of this trip. It looked like REI exploded in there. Not the most comfortable way to sleep, but quite necessary. We were all in our bags by 7 PM. The next day was the big climb.
Me, Gustavo, and Ted at high camp
Issac from the Love Boat, styling "The Bonnet". We started our climb the next day up the ridge on the right side of the picture.
We started the day with 6 climbers and 3 guides. By the way, it's usually not a good sign when someone starts a climbing story with, “We started the day with...” But don't worry, we're all safe and home now. :)
Anyways, we started the day with 6 climbers and 3 guides. The plan was to wake up at 1 AM, and be ready to roll by 2 AM. It's what's referred to as, and in this case is a rather extreme case of, an “Alpine Start”. Our turn-around time was to be 11 AM. This means that we would have about 9 hours to try to summit before we would have to turn around. The idea was to start heading back to camp before the sun started to really soften up the snow in the afternoon.
Soft snow is bad for many reasons. Given what we had experienced earlier on our hike up to high camp, avalanches were a concern on this trip. The fresh snowfall the week before, and the relatively high temperatures during the day creates melty, unstable snow pack. Soft snow also makes glacier travel more dangerous, and walking more difficult. Since we didn't have snow shoes, we preferred to walk on nice icy crusty frozen snow with our crampons rather than trudging through snow that sinks to our knees with every step.
We ended up rolling out at 2:40 AM, and started walking up Cascaval Ridge under a full moon. We all carried ice axes as sort of a walking stick, and to use in case we needed to stop ourselves from sliding off the mountain ("self arrest") if we ever slipped and fell. The guides also had us rope up in 4 person teams (1 guide + 3 climbers) for almost the entire climb, so we felt pretty safe. We also wore crampons, which are steel spikes that you attach to the bottom of your boot. They're pretty great for walking on icy surfaces.
Crampons
There are some things that I could never describe adequately in a blog, and sound is one of them. As our crampons bit into the frozen snow, we dislodged thousands of tiny snow crystals. The sound they made as they tinkled down the mountain reminded me of those “rain sticks” you sometimes see in museum gift shops. For a good half hour as we were climbing that ridge, we were serenaded by the music of crystal shards tumbling down the mountain. It was lovely.
Both rope teams were making good progress at a steady, sustainable pace as we reached the West Face and started heading up. Gustavo, Mark, and I were on Dane's team. Ted, Anne, and Hannah were with Lynette. Zeb the shadow guide was not roped up.
Things were going pretty well with our team until Mark, who was a bit heavier, began to punch through the snow crust with his steps. It's one thing to walk on the surface of frozen snow. It's a whole 'nother thing to try to recover from one of these post holes at high elevation. As you try to lift yourself out of that hole with your other foot, the extra weight often causes that foot to punch through also. The next thing you know, your heart goes from steady to red lining in the span of a few seconds as you try to recover. It's incredibly draining. After a few of these, Mark's knees couldn't take much more. Dane, concerned about Mark, decided to start pounding in snow anchors every 50 feet to insure that he had enough backup to keep the team from sliding down the mountain in case Mark fell. It was insurance, but very costly. It was a very slow process to have to pull out and reset the anchor every 50 feet. Lynette's team found themselves way ahead of us, and Zeb eventually had to rope in me and Gustavo to catch her while Dane to took Mark down the mountain when his legs finally gave out.
We were down to 5 climbers (Anne, Hannah, Ted, Gustavo, me) and 2 guides (Lynette, Zeb).
Meanwhile, on Lynette's team, Ted had dropped his ice axe on a switchback maneuver early on the West Face. He ended up climbing another 800-1000' with no ice axe, which is just insane. He later told us that he was pretty freaked out the entire time, even though he was roped up. I don't blame him. When my team finally caught up with Lynette, they had been hanging out for 30-40 minutes just waiting for us. Ted decided to go down with Zeb, and Anne decided that she had had enough and went down with them.
We were now down to 3 climbers (Gustavo, Hannah, and me) and 1 guide (Lynette).
This entire time on the West Face, I felt a Number 2 coming, and I knew it wasn't going to turn out well. High elevations and expanding gasses do not a good combination make! As our last rope team made our way up the final stretch of the headwall, I ended up blurting out my fateful request to Lynette. And as she recalled later the next day at the Billy Goat Tavern, when I prefaced with "I hate to have to tell you this...", she was thinking, "Oh boy, what are you going to tell me Steve? ..... Ahh sh*t."
She convinced me to keep it in for the last 400' of the headwall, a grueling 20-30 minute climb up an incredibly steep 35-40 degree slope. I would have my relief at the top. The fact that I was able to survive those 30 minutes with unsoiled pants is a feat in and of itself... regardless if I ended up summitting later that day.
*graphic material start*
Y'all must be curious about how exactly someone goes about taking a dump at 13,240' on a snow covered mountain. If you aren't, feel free to skip to the next paragraph! It's about to get pretty graphic! :) It ain't pretty. Obviously, there's no outhouse. Normally, in the Sierras in the summer, I'd dig a hole. But you can't do that in snow. Gotta keep the mountain pristine, you know. So the guides gave us "Wag Bags" at the beginning of the trip. Each kit contained a zip lock bag, a brown paper bag with kitty litter inside, and a piece of paper with, get this, a bull's eye target. You weigh down the bull's eye with rocks or snow... and well, you should be able to figure out the rest. These things are unpleasant enough to use in camp, with everything situated exactly how you want it. But on a mountain face? With freezing winds whipping? Ugh. First of all, the bull's eye was out of the question. No way that thing was going to stay put with that wind. It had to go right in the bag. You ever tried taking a shit into a lunch bag? Ya. Neither had I. Now I had to do it while wearing heavy mountaineering boots with metal spikes attached. Not only that, I also had to keep the toilet paper from flying away. The squatting effort on my quads alone was almost as difficult as the climb itself. I would not be lying if I said that dump took a lot out of me, in more than just the literal sense!
*graphic material end*
After that little unfortunate episode, we skirted around the southern tip of Whitney Glacier as we made our way to the base of Misery Hill, the last big push of the day.
You know how all the chewing gum and breath freshener companies have some sort of “blue ice” flavor? Believe it or not, that's no exaggeration. There was an icy blue crevasse up there in that glacier that made me think of an open wound on the skin of a snow giant. Unfortunately at that point, I was already running on fumes. There was no way I had enough presence of mind to remove my gloves in freezing winds, unzip three different layers to get my camera out to snap pictures, all the while holding onto my ice axe and keeping pace with the rope team as we walked along the glacier. I also saw a bunch of spectacular ice formations that I was just too tired to take pictures of. Smooth blobs of wavy ice covering the entire slope. Beautiful. So my friends, if you want to see what this stuff looks like, there's always National Geographic... or you can go climb your own mountain!
The site of Misery Hill was quite simply, soul crushing. Standing at its base, you look up and see a giant 600' high pyramid that you're going to have to climb before you can even see Shasta summit. I've climbed higher elevations in my life, but those 600' were the hardest 600' I've ever climbed. At the bottom of the hill, Lynette released us from the rope, and let the three of us make our way up at our own pace. By that time, we had already been climbing for over 8 hours at high elevation. I was close to empty. Combine that with the lack of oxygen up there, it literally took me 3 seconds for every step up. It was grueling.
By the time we reached the top, we were only 400 vertical feet away from the summit. We could see it! But that was as far as we would go. :( Hannah had absolutely nothing left. I was close behind her. We needed to be roped up to get to the summit, but we weren't about to leave anybody behind on Misery Hill to get punished by the cold. It was 11:45 AM. We had been climbing for 9 straight hours in conditions none of us, aside from Anne, have ever faced. The summit was another hour away. We decided to call it a day.
In the end, it's hard to say why none of us summitted in almost perfect climbing weather. I can't fault the guides. They certainly gave everybody on the trip who wanted to, a chance to summit, but I think it also indirectly led to our failed bid.
First, the avalanche threat made us camp and climb a bit further than we had to.
Then we started 40 minutes later than planned.
Then Ted dropped his ice axe, which freaked him out and ultimately led to his downfall.
Then Lynette's team had to wait for 30-40 minutes on the side of a freezing mountain as Dane's team carried out a series of 5 or 6 belays to help Mark up several hundred extra feet before Mark's knees finally gave out.
Then Zeb took me and Gustavo from Dane's team and amped up the pace to try to catch Lynette's team that was still freezing on the mountain. That took a lot out of me. You know how your car is less fuel efficient when you drive 90mph vs 40mph? I only had so much fuel in my tank, and even going the equivalent of 70mph was drawing me down quickly.
When we finally caught Lynette's team, the long, cold wait had drained a lot of energy out of Hannah. Anne, the good teammate that she was, went back down with Zeb and Ted, who had by now dropped a glove in addition to his axe.
Lynette then took Gustavo, Hannah, and me up the rest of the West Face. But she had to increase the pace because by this time, we were getting close to our turn around time. Add to that my little problem, and I was almost at empty by the time we got to the top of the West Face. Then Misery Hill finished off Hannah, which made the decision to turn around at that point easier for me and Gustavo.
With the exception of Ted dropping his axe, I believe none of these things on its own would have prevented us from summitting that day. But the combination of them all ultimately did us in. I have no regrets though. I had a blast, and learned a ton. Sometimes, you just have to take what the mountain gives you. There will be other climbs.
Shasta will still be there. I have a score to settle.
Our rough route in red. Misery Hill pyramid of pain in blue.
