Dates: June 16-17, 2017 Duration: 2 days, 1 nights Mileage: ~9.3 miles Group Members: Nick McGuire, Brian Vermont Pack Weights: Nick (~52 lbs) Notes: This was a very spur of the moment trip for me when I saw Brian post on Facebook on Monday that his climbing part had to cancel on him for their planned trip and he was looking for someone to accompany him. After trying to decide whether or not I was prepared for such a trip without any training and not having been on Mt. Shasta in over 7 years I was still somewhat apprehensive but realized I couldn't pass up on the opportunity. The trip was originally planned to be a 3 day, 2 night summit attempt via Avalanche Gulch but because we had to cut our summit attempt short due to the weather conditions we experienced we also shortened the trip. Route Map Available! Outbound Travel: Left Davis on Friday 6/16 around 7:50AM and arrived in the town of Mount Shasta around 11:10AM. Stopped at the Mount Shasta Ranger Station to get our Wilderness Permit (free) and Summit Pass ($25). These are also self-issue at the Bunny Flat Trailhead although exact change is required. Left the ranger station around 11:20AM and arrived at the Bunny Flat Trailhead around 11:40AM. Lots of vehicles at the trailhead but not too far down the road yet. Parking lot was fully plowed and snow to the south was mostly gone but plenty of snow on the north side right up to the bathrooms.
Day 1: (~1000 ft ascent, ~1.6 miles) Spent about 45 minutes getting ready at the trailhead and got on the trail at 12:30PM. Although it was warm and sunny the snow wasn't too soft and no one we saw was using snowshoes so we left them behind in the car and hiked with just boots and trekking poles. The peak itself was covered in a thick layer of clouds and it was obvious the wind was blowing strong from the west given how quickly they were moving (no wind down at our elevation however). Given the heat we both hiked in just t-shirts and shell pants. The trail was pretty well traveled at this point so the path towards Horse Camp was quite obvious although the Summer trail was not evident once you cross over the first small rise and drop down into the gulch. Hiked up the gulch for a ways and eventually caught site of foot tracks in the snow heading west out of the gully towards Horse Camp itself. There were a decent number of people on the trail but not a ton (maybe a dozen or so). The foot trail heading off to the west lead us directly to the solar composting toilets at Horse Camp which were fully functional and melted out at the base. Just a little ways past these we reached the cabin and were quite pleased to see the spring was dug out and running (hiked in w/ 3L camel back and 2 nalgenes full of water which was unnecessary given the flowing spring in retrospect).
It was now about 1:30 so the hike in had taken almost exactly an hour. We chatted with the caretaker who was a very nice and hospitable woman who offered suggestions about where to camp and what groups were already camping in the area as well as inquired about our trip plans, wishing us luck for tomorrow's summit attempt. We headed a little ways north from the cabin and found an area to make camp within the trees but less than 50 yards from the open area leading to the cabin. The spot wasn't perfect but offered some shelter from the light west wind and was reasonably flat and open. We used a snow saw and shovel to carve out a solid spot for the tent and built up reasonably high walls on the west side to help shelter the tent from the wind, which took us a couple hours to complete. We also dug a small bench, footwell and table for our kitchen setup. After getting unpacked we made dinner around 5:30PM (freeze dried backpacking meals for both of us) using our Jetboils. The igniter on mine decided to be finicky and would not light but I was able to successfully light it using Brian's Jetboil (newer model/design). We cleaned up from dinner, organized our gear for our summit attempt the next day, and discussed plans for the following day, agreeing to postpone our originally discussed departure time of 12-12:30AM until sometime between 1AM and 2AM. Set my altimeter watch alarm for 12AM and we both tried to go to sleep around 8PM. Day 2: (~2700 ft ascent, ~7.7 miles) Woke up at 12AM and slowly & leisurely started getting ready. Had breakfast, packed up and dropped off our food in a stuff sack in the cabin per the caretakers request due to a problem with a pine martin and rodents getting into people's food outside. Headed out on the trail to the summit around 1:50AM. The snow was not very firm so we did not use crampons. The beginning of the trail leaving Horse Camp was relatively clear but it took a little bit of searching as we hiked towards the mountain to confirm we were headed up the Avalanche Gulch route which is slightly to the west, closer to Casaval Ridge, and not in the gully a bit to the east towards Green Butte Ridge. We spotted a trail of boot tracks headed slightly north-west however so we were quickly on the correct route headed up the mountain. The weather was mild and actually pretty warm (lightweight long underwear and shell pants, t-shirt, fleece, rain shell jacket and beanie). Felt pretty good although the climb up to Lake Helen is a bit of a slog at time. The moon wasn't visible at first but eventually rose and illuminated our route nicely although headlamps were still required. Stopped for a few short breaks and one slightly longer one when Brian began to feel lightheaded.
Eventually reached Lake Helen (~10,400 ft) right around dawn just after 5AM. Took a long break here to rest and refuel as well as put our crampons on and switch from our trekking poles to ice axes. There were lots of people camped up at Lake Helen (~45 tents) and the wind was quite a bit stronger than on our approach. Quite a few people started climbing about the lake as we got ready (half a dozen or more groups of two or more) and we were right behind a couple as we started to head out around 5:30AM. Not more than a few minutes up the slope north of the lake however we began being hit by strong gusts of wind that tried to knock us backwards and began pelting us with hail-like chunks of ice and snow. Although I pulled my jacket over my helmet, was wearing a balacava over my face and had my glacier glasses on it still stung quite a bit given it was blowing straight down the mountain at us. We continued to make forward progress up the slope in between gusts but as we continued the gusts continued to become more frequent and worsened, forcing us to drop our bodies onto the slope and bury our ice axe shafts to the hilt in the slope to keep our balance. Each gust piled up a surprising amount of snow on our boots and clothing and both our rain shell pants were starting to become almost saturated. At this point all the larger groups around us and many of the smaller groups with skis turned back. A couple groups of two continued on so we pressed on for a bit longer but our progress was very slow due to sustained wind and ever increasing frequent strong gusts (forecasted to be steady at 35-45 mph with gusts in the 60-70 mph range). If it had just been the wind we might have tried for longer but the snow and ice pelting us finally forced us to turn around at ~10,650 ft, still quite a ways from the Heart and the Red Banks above us. It was frustrating to turn around given we both felt good and strong but not knowing what the conditions were going to be like as we got higher up and with our progress already significantly slowed by what we were facing at a much lower altitude we felt we had to make the call to turn back.
As we arrived back at Lake Helen the wind there had significantly increased and blew away someone's tent right as we arrived. We helped them collect some of their items but the gusts were so strong that many people were losing any loose items around their campsites. We hiked down the slope just below the lake and removed our crampons before continuing on down. The wind has much stronger at lower elevations now compared to when we had hiked up only an hour before. Other than the wind however the weather was beautiful and the snow conditions were great for both seated and standing glissades. We eventually made it back to camp around 7:40AM, tired and slightly disappointed but still excited and fulfilled by what we had accomplished and experienced that morning. We took a brief break to refuel and recover our strength, cracked a couple beers we had packed in and enjoyed them before breaking camp and packing up since there was no reason to stay the night as originally planned given how early in the day it was. We left camp around 9:20AM, bid farewell to the Horse Camp and the caretaker and headed back to the Bunny Flat Trailhead, arriving there around 10AM. We ran into a lot of people hiking in to Horse Camp on our way out and given the beautiful conditions forecasted for Sunday I'm sure there were going to be a lot more successful summit attempts the following day compared to our experience.
