Postmortem

May 15, 2016: This story begins a year prior. Shortly after graduating college I drove out to California in my jeep for a year long engineering internship. This is where I met Ronen (Old Man Winter) who was a full time employee at the time. We were given a somewhat boring task together and during its completion bonded over many mutual interests such as music, battlebots, and the great outdoors. When Spring time rolled around he invited me out for a "climb". Mountains on the east coast are relatively small. Hazards like altitude sickness or avalanches get little to no attention. So without really knowing what I was getting into I just said "sure"! Old Man Winter did a great job planning the trip, communicating risks, putting together gear lists, and more. I rallied the gear I needed and off we went after work one Friday afternoon with a few other friends (PVD and his wife, Windy).

It is a long drive from the Bay Area (6 hours with traffic). We arrived onsite maybe around 9PM and I slept on a tarp behind a tree by the parking lot. Brutal. The stars were nice though. We woke up around 4AM and were in motion before 5AM. It was not long before I realized how screwed I was. I got sick to my stomach from the early start and poor breakfast choices. I was slow on the lead in from lack of proper skinning technique (I was on a splitboard) and was having a hard time keeping grip on the firm snow. We regrouped as a team and decided to split up. I stayed back with PVD while the others continued. We slowly made our way to Helen Lake (~10,400ft) and stopped there. Clouds were rolling in fast and it was getting dark. Thunder roared in the distance. 'A' team was way above, out of sight. Suddenly there was a loud crack of thunder and hail started pouring down. Screw it - we were out of there! PVD and I dropped in from Helen Lake as fast as we could. My quads burned from the short climb up. We made it safely back to the car and the 'A' team had caught up. We scrambled to get our gear in the car as the weather intensified. Once settled, we grabbed some burgers in town as one does and headed home.

As brutal as that day was I still had a blast. I was so stoked coming down the mountain on this huge wide open face with crazy weather blowing down - total adventure. I vividly remember saying out loud right then and there by the car - "next year, I am going to come back and summit..."

May 2016 - April 2017: I have always been an objective driven person. I do not like going through life just winging it. If there is something I really want to do I sit down and devise a plan on how I can make it happen. It takes alot of discipline. Usually checklists and spreadsheets are involved. It is a fun process - I enjoy it actually. I told myself after the first attempt that I want to come back, summit, and then snowboard down, all in one day. It is a big day - 7000ft in 5.5miles is no joke. And there are very real consequences when things go wrong on Shasta. People get seriously injured or die every year on Shasta from avalanches, rock fall, slide outs, and exposure. I had no real world experience in this kind of stuff. It was a complex problem but I figured it could be solved if I stayed focused on 3 basic areas: physical strength, technical skills, and hazard/risk analysis. First, I needed to get serious. I got obsessed. I read mountaineering books, did gear research, and talked to more experienced climbers. I practiced with my gear, and got to know how to use it more efficiently. When winter season started I was ready to apply my knowledge. I practiced avalanche rescue and did smaller backcountry tours throughout the season which lead to larger climbs like Matterhorn Peak. During the week I did intense cardio exercises daily on an elliptical to keep my heartrate up. I even went on a strict diet with 0 sugar, fried food, junk food, or alcohol. I called this the "Shasta diet". Never felt better in my life. I did resort skiing over the weekends to practice my downhill skills. I thought through the nitty gritty details (layering, sun protection, pack weight). I held myself accountable by talking to people about what I was trying to achieve. Everything I did was for Shasta! This became an obsessive lifestyle around one single goal. Mountaineering can be really selfish - you have to make sacrifices, ditch other plans, and be less social. But this was important to me. By the end of April it was time to move out and take on Mount Shasta once again.

April 29, 12PM: Old Man Winter and I loaded up the Shasta van and hit the road. The plan was to get to the trailhead by early evening, do final gear prep, and get to sleep. We were aiming for a 1AM start time, anticipating a long day. As we drove up route 5 we passed a Cleveland Model 247. I looked it up later, it is a trench/cable plow. Gnarly. We arrived to the base of Bunny Hill Flat by 5PM. This was the first time I had seen Shasta since the previous climb. It was looking primed and ready! Weather was calling for a bit of wind but otherwise clear. Avalanche risk was low. I was anxious to get started. We were sleeping by 7:00PM (trying to at least).

April 30, 12:03AM: It was impossible to sleep. Between the awkward hours and general anxiety I had no chance. We were originally going to wake up at 12:30AM or so but we were just lying there awake so no reason not to start moving. We took our time, had some good breakfasts, did a final gear check, and bathroom run - in motion by 1:24AM (I grabbed a quick screenshot on my phone). It is good to have smaller objectives throughout the day, moving one step at a time. First up - Helen Lake, 10,400ft. I actually suffered a similar stomach ache within 30 minutes of moving. I was starting to feel doubts if I would just be repeating the previous year. I took a deep breath, removed a layer to cool down, and paced myself more intentionally. Within another 30 minutes I felt good again. One problem down, keep moving. By 4:30AM we were at Helen Lake. That is a steady 1000ft/hour pace. We took a solid 20minute break to sit down, eat some more calories and trade our splitboards for crampons and an ice axe. It was time for Avalanche Gulch which climbs 2400ft in less than a mile. Our next objective was the red banks at the top of the gulch.

April 30, 5:00AM: We were already in Avalanche Gulch by this point, entering new territory. The sunrise was a welcoming sight. As we progressed up the climb I was feeling really good. I was cautiously but comfortably making steady progress and felt strong. The altitude was having effects on me but I could manage it. I do not have many photos from Avalanche Gulch unfortunately. I was pretty focused on the task at hand. As we made our way up the high winds predicted in the forecast became our reality. Strong gusts forced us to slow down and make interval sprints in between. I had to replace my sun glasses with goggles because small bits of firm snow and ice were getting sprayed into my eyes. The intensity picked up and it was getting sketchy. The strong winds could be enough to topple us over, putting us into a serious self arrest situation. We dug a snow pit in the side of the mountain and decided to wait it out. We wanted to be at summit no later than 2PM, giving us plenty of daylight and decent snow before it all became slush. We determined we had about an hour worth of delay we could account for before needing to call it. Fortunately after an hour the wind calmed down. Shasta was giving us a test, and it looks like we passed. We continued boot packing up the mountain and by around noon finished Avalanche Gulch and were standing at the Red Banks - 12,820ft. Misery hill was our next target.

April 30, 1:12PM: Misery hill is not steep, but after Avalanche Gulch it is an exhausting slog with another 1,300ft to go. The altitude was really affecting me, making it hard to focus and move quickly. Once we got to the top of misery hill we decided to drop the splitboards to save weight and bag the summit which was only another few hundred feet of vertical. The snow had turned really firm and penitentes had formed. The wind was howling again. We were approaching our turn around cutoff so we had to move. Just after 2PM we were standing on the summit of Mount Shasta! We snagged some pictures and took in the views. Fortunately the descent should be nice and fast!

Always feels great heading down on a snowboard instead of by foot! Not going to lie though, the snow quality was wind scoured and crusty until about 11,000ft. By Helen Lake it was classic spring corn. Low angle cruiser back to the car! It took us maybe an hour including the transition. I have been told recently that the skiing on the western side of the mountain (off of Casaval ridge) is really fun. I would love to check that out too some day.

There was still plenty of snow that year to ski right back to the van. We celebrated the moment, packed up, got our burgers and made the trek back home. Shasta is a California classic, and rightfully so.

The journey I embarked on to turn a complete disaster of an attempt into a success will always serve as a reminder to myself to keep pushing forward. I think E.D. Pierce would be proud.