Dates: January 17-19, 2009 Duration: 3 days, 2 nights Mileage: ~5 miles each day; 2300 ft ascent from base camp to summit Group Members: Nick McGuire, Chris Genger, CAG Guide, two others Pack Weights: unknown and varied day to day Notes: This trip was our first foray into Mountaineering! My friend Chris and I took a guided Intro to Winter Mountaineering course through California Alpine Guides (CAG) and successfully reached the summit of Mt. Lassen and gained much needed "snow backpacking" experience in preparation for more mountaineering trips. We had a great experience with CAG...make sure you check out the link to their website on the Backpacking External Links page! Route Map Available! Day 1: (~5 miles) Left the Lassen Nat. Park visitor center (Elevation: ~6700 ft) at around 10AM and snowshoed up the road (Hwy 89) for a couple miles before taking the "Ranger Shortcut" to cut off a long section of road. This shortcut skirts around Diamond Peak to the west and is more strenuous than the road but is quite a bit shorter distance-wise. We then continued along the road for a ways before going cross-country again, past Emerald Lake, to the shores of Lake Helen which we reached by mid-afternoon. Set up base camp (Elevation: ~8200 ft) near some trees along the western shore and dug pits for our tents and a kitchen. We then ate dinner and went to bed around 8:30 PM. Cold that evening but not too bad and definitely warm inside the sleeping back & tent....took off thermal bottoms and socks during the night...just needed shorts and the thermal top. Day 2: (~2300 ft ascent, ~4.5 miles) Woke up at 6AM, had breakfast and departed camp on our summit attempt a little before 8AM. Crossed frozen Lake Helen and met back up with the road which we took up to the parking lot below the mountain. Put on crampons and cross-countried it up towards the mountain and over to a ridge on the south east side. Followed the ridge line most of the way up the mountain before angling away from it, heading in a more direct north-east route towards the summit. Reached the summit (Elevation: ~10,457 ft) before noon, had lunch and then descended. Very windy as we approached the saddle below the summit and pretty windy at the top. Climbed back down the mountain and descended the ridge line the same way we came up. We then took our crampons off and glissaded down to the parking lot once we were off the ridge line and in softer snow where crampons weren't necessary. Snowshoed back to base camp and arrived by 3PM; relaxed for an hour before performing an avalanche beacon scenario. Ate dinner and were in bed by 7:30PM. Very cold that evening but warm again inside the tent and sleeping bag....didn't need any additional layers inside once again. Day 3: (~5 miles) Woke up at 7AM and had breakfast....colder night resulted in condensation on the tents which got everything a little wet. Learned some rope techniques including team self-arrest before breaking camp and heading back down the road by 11AM. Reached the visitor center a little after 1 PM.