TR: Climbing Mt Shasta via Casaval Ridge, plus a half-assed rescue. 4/2-4/4, 2019
Posted: Sun May 05, 2019 3:19 pm
Just returned from trip up to Mt. Shasta. I've never been up there due to my lack of imagination- I couldn't wrap my head around a single mountain, and how to plan a backpacking trip around it. I know now that it is such a giant, multi-peaked, fascinating canyoned thing that one could easily plan a trip up one side, down the other, and all around its geologic wonders. This time I went up just to climb the mountain, because I saw at least three good clear days ( 4/2 - 4/4 ), and photos of Casaval Ridge route looked very appealing. There are some interesting descriptions of this route, such as: "Casaval is a moderate climb with big risk aesthetics." And: "Most of the route is not particularly technical, but a fall would be tragic." The first leaves me wondering- "risk aesthetics" is becoming a contradictory term for me as I age. Here is the attractive language: "... it climbs to 13,400 in a single line dotted with gendarmes, traverses, and exposed ridges... options are almost infinite."
My original plan was to race up on Thursday 4/2 and camp at the edge of the treeline; then reach the famous Helen Lake basecamp on Friday, climb higher-sleep lower at Helen, which is 10,443, and then climb up on Saturday. Instead, I packed in pretty far on Thursday, finishing in the dark at about 9,600.'
Looking up the massive avalanche path at the base of Avalanche Gully. The forest is nearly all fir trees.
Friday dawned so beautifully, that I decided to make use of what promised to be a bright blue, calm and beautiful day.
I traversed up and over to a point on the Casaval Ridge called "the 1st Window," seen here to the right of the tallest spire. I found a big red tent perched there. The owner was not home, but I got to know him well later on- Oh my!
The red stain here is part of him left on the snow after regaining the ridge- more to come.
The route is everything it was cranked up to be, except for the "falls would be tragic" part- I never felt the need for anything beyond the usual caution, and rather than "tragic," it looked like more a matter of losing a lot of skin off of one's ass if you missed your one chance at a self-arrest- (ask my new friend).
The beauty of the route is in the wonderful array of pinnacles, spires, and wildly textured ice formations higher up. There are endless options, and I chose to criss-cross a bit, and climb on the rock here and there- you really can make the path anything you like- including a lot more extreme than I did.
Steep! and very icy on this north side of the Casaval- imagine what you'd look like if you had slid down 400 feet of this!
This was extreme enough for me. You see the route I chose from the moats at the base of the lower rock onto fissures in the snowfield, to "duck-walking steps up. There were even a few sections where front-pointing was needed.
As seen here, one could finish the Casaval with an ice climb up these last gendarmes. I knew I was going to be dead tired before the 4,600' upward were over, so I left the wilder options for another day. "yet knowing how way leads on to way,..."
I had to choose this one variation that placed me right up against- and even under, a fantastic red cliff hung with ice. I was happy to just climb under them- like a slow ride on a hollow, icy wave.
My original plan was to race up on Thursday 4/2 and camp at the edge of the treeline; then reach the famous Helen Lake basecamp on Friday, climb higher-sleep lower at Helen, which is 10,443, and then climb up on Saturday. Instead, I packed in pretty far on Thursday, finishing in the dark at about 9,600.'
Looking up the massive avalanche path at the base of Avalanche Gully. The forest is nearly all fir trees.
Friday dawned so beautifully, that I decided to make use of what promised to be a bright blue, calm and beautiful day.
I traversed up and over to a point on the Casaval Ridge called "the 1st Window," seen here to the right of the tallest spire. I found a big red tent perched there. The owner was not home, but I got to know him well later on- Oh my!
The red stain here is part of him left on the snow after regaining the ridge- more to come.
The route is everything it was cranked up to be, except for the "falls would be tragic" part- I never felt the need for anything beyond the usual caution, and rather than "tragic," it looked like more a matter of losing a lot of skin off of one's ass if you missed your one chance at a self-arrest- (ask my new friend).
The beauty of the route is in the wonderful array of pinnacles, spires, and wildly textured ice formations higher up. There are endless options, and I chose to criss-cross a bit, and climb on the rock here and there- you really can make the path anything you like- including a lot more extreme than I did.
Steep! and very icy on this north side of the Casaval- imagine what you'd look like if you had slid down 400 feet of this!
This was extreme enough for me. You see the route I chose from the moats at the base of the lower rock onto fissures in the snowfield, to "duck-walking steps up. There were even a few sections where front-pointing was needed.
As seen here, one could finish the Casaval with an ice climb up these last gendarmes. I knew I was going to be dead tired before the 4,600' upward were over, so I left the wilder options for another day. "yet knowing how way leads on to way,..."
I had to choose this one variation that placed me right up against- and even under, a fantastic red cliff hung with ice. I was happy to just climb under them- like a slow ride on a hollow, icy wave.