Mount Shasta: Avalanche Gulch

We arrived at Bunny Flat TH @ 1900 Friday of Memorial Day weekend. We got a good night of rest under some Shasta rain, and began our ascent to high camp at 0800 Saturday morning. Early on the trail is totally clear of snow up to Horse Camp. There is fresh flowing, pure Shasta water at Horse camp. I filled up unfiltered without hesitation. This was our last stop for running water.

Horse Camp — photo by Tom Girard

We continued onward towards mini-misery and at the top (9200’) was the snowfield terminus. Many groups were debating crampons. The perched flat of Helen Lake camp was visible from this location, and with warm conditions, we continued onward without crampons. It was the right call (and we looked way cooler).

We arrived to Helen Lake to find it crowded, even with our early start. It was a full on “tent city” with a lot of ambitious mountaineers out celebrating the holiday weekend in style.

Tent city at Helen Lake

The group dug in where we could and set up camp. The privacy pit was in rough condition and severely declined as the weekend went on. Even after a complimentary clean-out and deeper dig in! Be prepared to witness some trace.

Leaders decided on a 1am start time. The team worked like pros setting up a common area and boiling water. We were well supplied thanks to the hard work of the water crew. Melting snow at high camp is a must!

A starry night to begin our ascent

One small group headed up an hour earlier as they anticipated a slower pace. Everyone was on time to leave and we were on the snow by 0115 walking up (wonderful!). The snow was soft and exhausting until we hit around 11,000 ft, then we started to find our groove. Route finding was difficult. Where I couldn’t find a boot path, I led us back and forth on switchbacks until I spotted one again.

Eventually we found our stairway to Red Banks and took a snack break. There is no privacy here, but it is a popular spot for people (like me) to get hit with GI distress (13,000+ ft), so the group (and others we witnessed on the descent) had to wait a few extra minutes on the coldest bio break of my life (previous record was on Mount Baker during a snow storm). Thanks team!

Team looking down at the Red Banks traverse

The small forward team turned around due to altitude sickness and returned to high camp as we approached Red Banks. Two in the larger group fell back due to altitude sickness and fatigue with another leader. The leaders coordinated through radios and adapted to the ever-changing situation. The conditions continuously changed on the mountain as well. Starting off with clear, starry skies, the weather quickly turned into gusty winds and clouds charging through as we climbed with low visibility on Misery Hill.

Misery Hill in the clouds

As a first timer on this mountain, I wasn’t sure what was ahead of us. Some of the group thought we should take crampons off, as misery hill is almost completely melted out. After a quick group discussion, we opted we keep them on. We were approaching 14,000 ft, and I was starting to get tired just reaching for my water bottle. I thought crampons on/off might end up being a huge delay for the seven of us, or wear some people out. We powered through. To our delight, the path is mostly sandy, loose dirt switchbacks. It was chill on the crampons.

Near the top of Misery Hill, a cloud swallowed us whole. The light began to crest over the cloud ceiling. There was a faint, orange glow. The silhouette of the summit block appeared. Now we knew we were close. We expected a big dip, but it was a flat snowfield crossing over to the snowy boulder scramble.

Summit block sunrise

The team successfully summited at the precise moment the sunrise moved above the clouds. The Spring conditions yielded an incredible cloud inversion surrounding us. We celebrated and took a much-needed rest at 14,179 ft. Humbly, our team of seven were first to the summit register this day at about 0545!

Cloud inversion at the summit

The team of seven — first to the register

Resting at 14,179 ft

On our descent, we ran into our smaller team below that was taking it slow. Despite challenges, both pushed through and summited with their leader. An absolutely legendary effort against the odds! For us, the descent was icy and firm still. We kept crampons on and made our way down Avalanche Gulch. Misery Hill and Red Banks had turned into common social areas. Super cool that so many people were getting after it on a long weekend. Love to see it.

Light rays on Shasta

Descending Misery Hill

We returned to High Camp greeted by the smaller forward team and rested up. We cleaned up camp, waited for the slower small team that summited to make it back down safely, and returned to the trail head. The snow down below Helen Lake was quite soft and punchy, so try your best to stay on whatever boot path is there.

The descent and return to TH is very fast. It was too icy to glissade from Red Banks. Once we hit some slightly softer snow in the sun, we sent it. We made it back around noon with an hour break at high camp.

Fortunate to meet a lot of epic people on this trip. It was a great mountain, the conditions were spectacular, and the team was amazing. Highly recommend if you’re keen on Cascade volcano climbs! All pictures by me unless noted. Follow me @journeywithjoshua_ on Instagram for all my adventures.