Video recap:
We got lucky with a beautiful day to climb Mt Shasta over Memorial Day weekend 2018. Check out the video below.
0:00 - We had wanted to head out on Friday after work for a possible Sunday summit attempt, but some bad weather was forecasted that night on the mountain with the strong winds potentially lingering around for a day or two. So instead we changed plans and delayed everything by a day: leave Saturday morning, hang out in Shasta during the day, begin climbing on Sunday to acclimatize, then do the summit early Monday morning.
0:15 - As we approached the mountain via the access road Saturday evening we could see massive wind gusts whipping the fresh snow off the mountain. Good choice to delay the trip by a day...
0:36 - [2,118 m] Pulling into Bunny Flat Trailhead, it became clear pretty quickly that there were going to be quite a few people around on account of the holiday weekend. If you're looking for a bit of solitude definitely don't come during Memorial Day, but in the end it didn't detract from the experience for me. While there were (roughly guessing) 200 cars at Bunny Flat, we were still able to camp right next to the car and the crowds thinned out somewhat after starting the hike the next day.
0:51 - We took our time Sunday, leaving Bunny Flat in the late morning with all our gear with the goal of making camp at Lake Helen that night. Staying at Lake Helen was a good option to acclimatize to the altitude for the summit the following day, especially since none of us had spent any time at altitude since ski season. The winds were still extremely strong that morning, and we passed a ton of people who were descending back down to Bunny Flat. Unfortunately it seemed as though no one was able to summit due to the winds. In fact a few tents that had been pitched at Lake Helen blew off the mountain. Again, good choice to delay the trip by a day...
1:55 - [3,169 m] We arrived to a mostly empty camp at Lake Helen on Sunday afternoon, but a few groups who had braved the winds that morning were sticking around to attempt a summit Monday morning. By the end of the evening there were probably a good 20-30 tents at camp. Make sure to bring a lot of gas to melt/purify snow and stay hydrated if you are camping at Lake Helen, we had some people come around asking for gas/water since they hadn't brought enough and luckily we had extra to share.
The action cam quality is poor in the dark so I have no video here, but we woke up to check conditions for summiting at around 2 am. The winds had been quite strong all night and still were, so no one was very enthusiastic to leave camp. We decided to go back to sleep for an hour and check again at 3 am. At 3:30 the winds were still fairly strong but we could see multiple groups of headlamps along the start of Avalanch Gulch so we geared up and headed out at a fairly quick pace, trying to get towards the front of the pack to see if we could get a bit of the mountain to ourselves.
2:36 - We reached the Red Banks during sunrise which led to an amzaing view. The view of the shadow of the mountain extending above the horizon was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. If you're going to do Shasta, leaving early enough to catch this sunrise view and beat the crowds is a must.
3:24 - Three guys from Oregon passed us with about 1/3 of the climb remaining, just towards the top of Misery Hill. They said they had just done Rainier and Hood a few days before so clearly they were well acclimatized and in impressive shape. They were summiting from Bunny Flats in 1 day and had left around 1 am, which sounds like a cool challenge and something I'd like to go back and try next year.
3:45 - We hit the summit plateau, which means only a small climb left to the summit. Here there are some great views of the crater on top of Shastina and the glaciers that line the northern gully between Shasta and Shastina.
4:06 - [4,321 m] It was awesome to be the second group up there with almost no one around. The 360 panorama view is pretty amazing, providing views of Lassen Peak, Trinity Alps, and some of peaks around Crater Lake (Mount McLoughlin I think?).
4:42 - Started the descent. It's hard to say exactly how many people we passed on the way down, but I would confidently say more than 100. So moral of the story is, especially if you're going to do Shasta during a popular time, head out early if you want to avoid the crowds anywhere above Lake Helen and at the summit.
5:00 - While we descended Avalanche Gulch too early to glissade, by the time we had packed up camp at Lake Helen and eaten lunch the snow was soft enough to glissade down from Lake Helen. Nothing beats knocking down 700 m of elevation drop sliding on your butt.