Mt. Shasta June 24-25 2017

[alpinemike]

While my primary climbing interests lie in finishing the SPS list in the Sierra I love mountains! And I certainly love big ones that have prominence. I've also gotten into snow condition mountaineering in the past couple years. So Shasta was a pretty likely candidate to go on my list of epic mountains to climb.

An opportunity presented itself this Spring to climb some mountains via Winter/Spring snow conditions with a friend that I made last year. Dan and I hiked with Rogue on one of our sections last summer. And we really hit it off so we became backpacking/climbing partners. We've done quite a few climbs together from last fall to now. That includes Mt. Shasta, Lassen, Sierra Buttes (twice actually.. and once in the spring with full on deep snow and winter conditions), along with several more in the Sierra like Mt. Tom.

Shasta was actually easier technically speaking than Lassen and I'll post some photos of Lassen hopefully soon. We went up Avalanche Gulch and camped at Helen Lake one night. We had an incredible time up the grueling 7000 Foot ascent up the beast of a mountain but we made it! Dan and his boss joined on this adventure!

My 6th 14er and 2nd Cascade Volcano. Hoping to get another 5 14er's this year and then I'll only have the 2 Palisade ones left! I love the fact that California not only has the tallest mountain the lower 48 but also the largest Cascade Volcano! Shasta is enormous!

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[cslaght]

Amazing stuff! The shot of the shadow of the beast is incredible, rightfully so!

[giantbrookie]

Nice report. I too was once an SPS peak hunter before I morphed priorities to backcountry fishing, but I found the allure to Shasta irresistible even after I had shifted gears to fishing. It was actually my wife, though, who doesn't even like peak bagging, who was bitten by the Shasta bug when she saw it on our trips up to the Klamath area wilderness areas (Trinity Alps, Marble Mtns, Russian Wilderness, etc.) to fish, It is such a beautiful mountain and so large as to be its own self-contained mountain range of sorts. We did it as a dayhike from the parking lot on Memorial Day weekend of 1992 after failing (weather closing in when high) twice the previous year, including a heartbreaking retreat from Misery Hill (so close, yet so far). There were The big glissade down the "bobsled run" has always been one of the rewards of the Shasta climb. Great fun. Nice photos.

[Willythedog]

I was up there too on the 24th. Started at bunny flat around 1am, got to the summit around 11am. Tough going after a work day + long drive + no sleep. It was worth it though. Absolutely perfect weather, ALOT of people that day.