As we sit at the Shasta trailhead the weather started movin in rapidly. Starting with rain, and turning into hail, the evening temps brought on snow. We burrowed deep into the van and read our books for many hours hoping that the predicted forecast would come through as planned. We were to begin our trek to the base of Mount Shasta the next morning and it appeared that it was going to be a chilly start. The forecast was still supposed to greet us with a fair chance of precipitation the next day but after we pushed the van up a grueling 8 mile rock filled road we were going in regardless. Earlier in the evening when we were preparing food for our trip in, we were humorously reflecting on our diet the past few weeks and tallied that we have eaten somewhere between 5 & 6 jars of peanut butter (14lbs!), 80 tortilla shells(maybe more) enough chips and salsa to turn us into permi-mexicans and probably more than 15lbs of various kinds of sausage. Also mixed in is a variety of other starches such as potatoes, pasta and rice...lots and lots of rice. We've eating delicious home cooked meals nightly and indulging in tasty beers. You'd think with all these heavy caloried foods we'd be bulking up nicely for climbing. Infact quite the opposite is taking place. Sam's pants are barely hanging onto his hips so I'm secretley adding an extra dose of olive oil to our dinners ;)
Waking up the next morning, I peek out of the window to find a fresh 2 inches of snow. Yuck! It's june and I thought we left all that cold white stuff back in Montana. We stay hibernated in the van for the morning drinking copious amounts of coffee and eating fried bagels with peanut butter and nutella. It talste almost like a S'more flavored donut! YUM. We contemplate what we should do by either spending one more day couped up in the van or braving the ugly cold weather that doesn't seem to be clearing up and just hike in. Deciding to for-go the warmth and comfort of the van, we pack up and put our brave faces on. Just as our packs were ready to go we up and changed our minds, tomorows forecast looked much better and we'd be silly to endure the ugly-ness for no reason.
The next morning greeted us with near perfect blue skies and not an ounce of precipitation in the air. High mountain peaks tend to create their own weather systems so as we got closer to the base of the mountain we could see the ominous clouds blowing violently from Shasta's summit. We continued towards the bottom of the mountain and selected a camp site nesteled on a rock band between two snowfields. Camp was set at about 10,500 feet and my lord was it cold. It was going to be a cold night and we'd be wearing all clothing layers plus down jackets and three sleeping bags. That ought to do the trick...hopefully :)
The chilly wake up came far too early, it always does. I'm typically very cranky at this point in the adventure. It's not necassaricly that it's 4AM but that i have to come out of the warmt of my sleeping bag, change clothes, attempt to pack my climbing gear with brittle cold fingers, and most painfully put on ice cold boots onto my already frozen feet. This all takes me quite a long time not only because of the cold but because I'm throwing minor temper fits in detest of doing anything but crawl back into bed. all this time Sam is happily waiting and ready to rock.
Immediately after stepping away from camp we need to put crampons on to climb the glaciers and will continue to use them for the next 4,000 feet. We NEVER hike/climb in our down jackets. Usually once we start moving the blood gets pumping a long sleeve shirt will do just fine. Today though, we are both in our big puffys for a good portion of the morning. The first 1,500 feet of the climb takes us forever. I'll admit it was mostly my fault as i was moving slower than a snail going backwards. It's merely a mental game at this point. I know that I'm strong enough and very capable of a forward motion by my mind is telling me that this sucks. (and it kinda does) Sam was very very patient with me (and mighty speedy!) and lended me some kind words of encouragement...well ok maybe it wasn't a so gentle "get it into gear". Realizing that it was getting late I either needed to committ and trudge on QUICKLY or start making the descent back to camp. Failure is not fun so onward we went. We were finally begining to have some fun! The sun was out and below us we could look down at some pretty impressive crevasses in the glacier. We were on the norther side of the mountain doing a route called the Hotlum-Bolum ridge and ended up being the only part on route. As we pushed our way to the summit crest we were able to get a view of the popular standard route on the other side. There certainly was not a lack of people doing this route. We probably counted 20 other people either going up or down over there. Made us very happy that on a California volcano that gets attempted 15,000 times per year we had one entire side to ourselves. We briefly stood on the summit to get a picture and then took shelter from the ferocious wind and had a snack. During the descent we looked back ant the sun and saw one of the most amazing things happen. A sundog or ice halo had formed around the sun. This happens when ice crystals in the air deflect light at a 22 degree angle and forms a perfect rainbow around the sun. We couldn't decide if this was a good or bad omen but finally settled on it bringing good fortune. Made an attempt at snapping a picture but it doesn't do much justice for how beautiful it was. Once back at the tent we took a much needed couple hour nap before packing up and hiking the 3 miles back to the van. This will be our last trip in California and a great one to end on before heading up to Oregon!
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