[pct-l] Hood and Rainier on a Thru-hike

[Hillary Schwirtlich]

My experience on Shasta (and these stories have NOTHING on Shroomer's, so
don't get too excited):

This one is better for those who've been to Lake Helen. We (me, my
boyfriend, another PCT '11 thru and two others) went to climb Shasta
Memorial Day weekend of last year. We got up to Lake Helen and set up camp
for the night at around 3 or 4 pm so we had a lot of time to sit around and
enjoy the views. A couple of hours after we get there, we see two people
moving around on the ridge off to the right, about 1,000 feet above us, a
ways away from the most popular route. Then, one of them puts down an inner
tube and jumps off the ridge. In about 6 seconds, he goes from about 12,000
feet to stop at about 10,000 feet. About halfway down, he and his inner tube
become disconnected and he slides the rest of the way to 10,000 feet on his
butt and belly, bouncing around. When he finally comes to a stop, he's
motionless, and everyone is wondering if he's alive. Then we look back up at
the other guy on the ridge, who hesitates, and then starts making his
switchbacks down. Apparently he reconsidered the idea of inner tubing down
from 12,000 ft. The other guy ended up being okay. I don't know if he had
any injuries, but he was moving.

We ended up getting kicked off the mountain the next morning. My boots were
loosing their waterproofing, and my toes were too cold and wet. I really
didn't want to stop, but my boyfriend talked me out of probably getting
frostnip or frostbite. Sigh. That was the first mountain that ever kicked me
off (I haven't climbed very many). Now I have a score to settle with both
Shasta and Glacier. Shasta, because of equipment failure; Glacier, because
that mountain, fair and square, put me in my place.

So, anyway, I agree with the advice on not underestimating Cascade peaks...
When we climbed both, Hood was more technical than Shasta, but Shasta
shrugged us off and Hood allowed us to get to the top. And the inner tuber
just thought he was invincible... don't be stupid like that guy. :)

On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Scott Williams <baidarker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Paul,
>
> I don't even remember telling you guys that story, but that's probably just
> how drunk you all got me at Warner Springs last year after the big snow.
>  Much has already been said about Shasta, and although it can be climbed
> anytime of year, the usual season is April to early June if coming up the
> south side anyway, and it's for the same reasons mentioned for Hood, the
> darn mtn just comes apart when the ice melts.  So even from April to June,
> you start your climb from base camp at 1 or 2 in the morning so as to make
> it up and down by noon.  Base camp at Lake Helen (thank you Muir's youngest
> again) is 11,000 feet, and all afternoon, you hear rocks and boulders
> coming
> down from all around the camp.  It's a big basin, and Base Camp is not
> usually threatened, it's just that the trail up "the Heart" is right in the
> line of fire so to speak, as you climb up the center of the depression and
> are bulls eye for passing canon balls.
>
> The day we made it to base camp in late May, we were kind of taking in the
> sights and sounds, rocks rolling all around that basin, maybe 3 or 4 pm,
> when it's the loosest, when a huge bolder, bigger than a house broke loose
> from the ridge to the west of us.  It went airborne off a cliff and hit the
> top third of a huge spire, one of the ones you can see from Hwy 5, and the
> top 3rd of that thing just exploded.  Rock, ice and snow in a huge cloud of
> stuff billowing right down at base camp.  It was like in some damn nature
> movie, only louder, and we were right in the path, as base camp is on the
> glacial moraine that creates Helen Lake.  It didn't get us, and just
> spilled
> out all over the ice on Helen, but it scared the shit out of about 100 of
> us
> camped on that moraine.  Really crazy.
>
> That night while climbing, it was just a lot of little lights going up that
> depression, and whenever a rock, or bolder would come loose, someone up
> trail would yell, "Rock!", and we'd all aim our headlights up the slot, and
> try to see it so as to get the hell out of the way.  One of them that
> whizzed past my head, about the size of a canon ball, we later learned hit
> a
> woman toward the bottom of the hill, and broke her ankle.  As we were
> making
> our way up, she was being medivaced out.  Two days later another person
> slipped on the ice and was killed when she could not self arrest in time.
>  Last year, two CAL Berkeley mountaineers went up in January. They were
> very
> experienced, made it to the top, but one of them started suffering from
> HAPE, and was dead in a very short time.  His buddy tried unsuccessfully to
> resuscitate him, but eventually had to leave him dead on the mtn. to get
> help.  The press had a field day, and made it all the worse by insinuating
> that the guy had left his friend to die.  Not true at all.
>
> Three of us geezers made it to the top, and had a hell of a great time, but
> it's not an easy jaunt.  You'll need a helmet, ice axe for the slots in the
> red banks, and good crampons.  No rope necessarily, but the main thing with
> any mtn. as steep as Shasta is to get it when it's still frozen.  It's done
> in late summer, but it's not as safe as in spring.    You can rent all that
> stuff in Shasta City, right on Hwy 5, a short hitch from the PCT.
>
> Good luck with it, as it's a great climb, just not to be taken lightly.
>
> Shroomer
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