Mount Shasta is a 14,179 foot tall stratovolcano in Northern California. This was our second attempt at climbing it; last year’s trip (linked here) was snowed out. The weather couldn’t have been more different, with clear blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures. The road to Clear Creek was closed about two miles from the trailhead, leaving us about 4 miles to hike on the first day. We camped at about 9400 feet on the east flank of the mountain. The summit looks deceptively close- from the camp, it’s only a couple of miles; unfortunately, one of these is vertical. We started climbing at about 2:00am, slogging our way up and eventually summiting at 11:00am. Nearly the entire route was on snow- we used double plastic climbing boots, crampons, and ice axes. The descent was much faster (and funner) – glissading thousands of feet down the steeply inclined snowfields. We practically had the Clear Creek route to ourselves; a couple of Telemark skiers were the only others on the slope that day.
