Last spring I begged to be assigned a story on climbing Mt. Shasta that I knew the NY Times was doing. At first the reply was "no, we'll find someone closer". Bummer. Then less than two weeks before the climb, they call me and ask if I want to do it! Well, so much for training in advance. I just took what fintess I had and went for it.
Stephen Regenold, Minneapolis based freelance writer (and fellow adventurer) and I struck out to climb the 14,000+ beast. If you want to read how it went, copy and paste this link: (tried to post as a link and blogger would not do it?)
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/travel/escapes/15Shasta.html
It was my first mountaineering climb, and as mountains go, this was a good first-timer's choice. It was not easy, but there are not heavy techincal sections. I have a long history or rock climbs, so this was something altogether new. It is basically a long, steep hike in the snow. Up, up and up some more.
Sadly, we never stepped foot on the summit. We endured 70+ mph winds and little sleep at camp (10,500') and in the morning we saw several avalanches in the area that we were to hike through. "Wind loading" was becoming bad. No other climbers made summit all week though, so we felt a little better about bailing. I am here to tell of the story rather than burried in snow. I feel good about the decision.
I got some nice photos despite the circumstances and had a good time to boot. Northern California is fantastic! Oregon is really nice too!
Enjoy the images. The guy descending is me - photo credit: Stephen Regenold.
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