Postmortem

There was some back and forth deciding which route to take, but ultimately we committed to the classic - Avalanche Gulch. I had thought about ascending via Avalanche Gulch and descending the west face, but upon arrival the west face looked a bit scraggily. Although it was probably feasible, I was unfamiliar with the area and did not want to take the risk. You can only do so much route planning ahead of time. You have to evaluate the conditions on site. We ended up ascending the normal Avalanche Gultch route, but skied down the "Left of Heart" variation which is steeper and less traveled. We were the only two people on the down route. I found this website which has a terrific summary and map of Shasta's routes.

June 7, 1:00PM: David and I met up around the Bay Area to load up his "Tech Bro Mobile" (heavily modified Sprinter Van) and headed north to Bunny Flat Trailhead. Weather was looking safe but it had been warm all week. Chances were low that it would get cold enough at night to refreeze. We discussed our options on the drive up and settled on a 2:30AM wake up time at an attempt to avoid the unstable slush going down. We arrived around 8PM where it looked like a Costco parking lot. Thankfully, we snagged a decent spot for the van. Look at that money gobbling machine - it has a ladder and everything! It needs a snorkel for those super deep stream crossings though. The overlander crowd would not approve. We were in bed by 9PM.

June 8, 2:42AM: We were awake and fueling our bodies full of sugar, water, and caffeine. I have to admit, sleeping in the van was pretty sweet. Temperature controlled, enough space for your bed and gear without moving everything around, breakfast making equipment ready to go, etc. I must be getting old. Anyways, I am not a fan of coffee - its bitterness has always put me off. But sometimes it is a good tool to have in the toolbox. David made me a sample size with some extra milk and I gave it a shot. A little goes a long way with me and it did not take much to kickstart my metabolism.

June 8, 4:39AM: We were in motion, getting into a rhythm through the forest heading towards our first objection - Helen Lake. In the first photo you can see the trail of headlamps. There were already people going up Avalanche Gultch at 3:00AM when we woke up. As expected, the snow did not freeze overnight. We actually started skinning close to 3:45AM, slightly later than planned since nature called on David in the last minute. We also missed a sharp left hand turn at the beginning which added some extra navigation time due to patchy snow. But once we found the skin track highway it was smooth sailing. As we were going through the forest there was a couple coming back down that looked completely exhausted. We asked them if they were trying to get back to the parking lot and they responded with a weary "that would be nice..." Their minimal gear suggested they had been out for a day trip, not an overnight. There is no good reason to be descending at 4AM, so I wonder if they started too late or fell way behind. A near miss for sure...stay safe ya'll.

June 8, 6:48AM: We were making great time, averaging over 1000ft/hr as we got to Helen Lake. David was feeling a little off from the lack of sleep but otherwise fine and I was running into some foot cramps so needed to readjust my boots. While many people prefer flexible ski boots for touring, I actually find more support and rigidity to be better for me. I do not know if I am doing something wrong or my feet are just weird but I tightened things up and that seemed to do the trick. Nature was calling for David (again) so we took a solid 20 or 30min break here and switched over to crampons and ice axes. There were a lot of people out there today - the conga line up Avalanche Gultch looked like a trail of ants.

June 8, 9:13AM: As expected, our pace slowed a bit climbing up the steep gulch but we were still making good progress. We had just passed the 12K mark. The soft snow required extra effort to get through, and the warm temperatures combined with high foot traffic throughout the week left the surface incredibly worn and riddled with suncups. I never felt particularly unstable, but was being mindful of foot placement more so than usual. It was right around this time we encountered a second near miss. Out of nowhere we heard people above us yelling "rock! rock!" and as we looked up noticed a filled Nalgene water bottle come hurling down maybe 30 feet to our left. Getting smacked from that could easily break a bone or worse, knock you off your feet. Keep your distance to others and always be looking ahead.

June 8, 10:08AM: Welcome to the Red Banks at 13K feet! I was starting to feel the altitude, mainly in the form of a diminished appetite. I forced myself to eat what I could but it did not want to go down. Mr. David seemed to be in a better state by this point. After a final stretch through the Red Banks we would begin the notorious misery hill. We were shooting for a 12:30PM summit so we could be going down by 1PM before it turned to complete slush city.

June 8, 11:16AM: Oh god. I wanted out. Not going to lie, I was about to cave. The bottom of misery hell was what nightmares are made of. I think we entered the 5th circle of hell. The sun was blasting down, turning the snow into a mushy mess. It was constant postholing. It took so much physical effort to keep moving at this altitude and I genuinely was not having a good time. The skiing from the summit is generally not great anyway...was it worth it? Gahhh...David and I discussed and he said he was good to keep going or turn around. I scanned the route and noticed that the snow thinned out a few hundred feet in front of me as more rock was visible. I figured things would get better at that point so I decided to press on. Fortunately it did get better, but the effort to get there was no joke. Nature called on Mr. David (AGAIN...what the hell man?) and in the interest of time I proceeded forward at a very slow pace on my own to keep the train moving. I got to the top of Misery Hill and waited but I could tell David was really struggling. He was stopping every 10 feet to catch his breath - something was off.

June 8, 12:42PM: When David finally reached the top of Misery Hill, I immediately suggested we lighten our load by stashing our skis. We were running out of time and needed to pick up the pace to make the summit. With just around 300 feet of vertical left and the skiing conditions from the summit being less than ideal, it was not worth carrying the extra weight. David agreed with the plan, so we did the ole' stash and summit plan. Before the final pitch there is a few hundred feet of flat. As I proceeded, I noticed our walking gap quickly widened. Within a few minutes I heard David yell out "Tim!" and as I looked back, saw David fall to his hands and knees, ready to vomit. I walked back over to him and did a quick assessment. He felt like garbage and was having sever stomach pains. It was too late in the day to mess around and I quickly suggested we go down. Maybe if we had an extra hour or two we could take some rest, rehydrate, and then try again. David felt bad to abandon mission Shasta but it was not worth it. We have both summited Mount Shasta before, and we still had 7000ft of skiing ahead of us. We quickly turned around to retrieve the stash. This picture was taken at our final resting point. Mount Shasta strikes again!

June 8, 1:31PM: Yeaaaa, time for the fun stuff! This one is for all you Shasta Rats out there! David (third photo) was first to drop into the "Left of Heart" variant right below Misery Hill (lookers left, skiers right when coming down Misery Hill). Topping out at 42degrees it is definitely a bit intimidating but the snow was soft (getting slushy kind of soft) and the face was wide. It was a long way down and my legs were feeling it. The roles reversed as David's poor climbing performance at the end turned into my poor skiing performance now. I needed to take a number of breaks along the way - everything below the waist had turned into pulled pork. Still faster than walking though - and a lot more fun. David was doing fine, roaring through the descent. I paid close attention to signs of instability and we stayed away from rock faces. There were many wet loose avalanches forming on the super steep pitches but we were safe in the middle.

June 8, 2:46PM: Back down to the van in about 1.5hrs! As I cruised down the flats, I could not help but appreciate how much more enjoyable and efficient skiing is compared to walking at the end of a long day. Eventually the snow path ended and we were forced to walk the remaining 1/10th of a mile. A curious beetle (possibly a White Spotted Sawyer Beetle?) joined us for some final celebrations before we packed it up and headed into town.

June 8, 4:11PM: We paid our respects to the mountain one final time before landing at Yaks Shack for an intense amount of calories. It was well needed - I really did not eat enough during the climb. I have a running "to do" list saved in my backcountry folder on Google Drive to track areas for improvement or research after each trip, regardless of its difficulty. Topics include glove selection, avalanche airbags, first aid and rescue, and of course - figuring out how to eat high quality and calorie dense food at altitude. Right now I have good days and bad days - I want to be more consistent. If you are reading this, suggestions are always welcome!

I am stoked that I was able to come back and take on Shasta again. Not reaching summit keeps me humble, and gives me something to fight for in the coming years. It is not that I did not care, but I think my goals and perspective have shifted over the last few years. Everything was still so new to me back in 2017 and I was focused solely on the summit portion. If you do an apples to apples comparison between the two trips, you will find I was much more prepared and efficient (both in time and physical condition) on this climb. I have sorted out little details and became more familiar with climbing technique. I have only been skiing for a few seasons now (my background is in snowboarding), which makes this my biggest ski descent yet. These are all wins and nothing to look down upon. I try to focus on that. And while deciding to turn around is never fun or easy, I can be proud to say it was a good decision. I am confident there will be more Shasta trip report pages in the future and hopefully of different routes.