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As usual we planned the Labor day week-end way ahead. This time Jane was a hostess for Lena and Rita - they were coming for 3 days from New York to see San Francisco and I went to climb Mt. Shasta. The preparations were thorough - Jane had a plan where to go with girls and I was a part of a well organized team to prepare for the climb. Alik Eliashberg did a great job renting equipment, gathering all us together for the ride and so on . Friday evening after work Alik picked me up in the city and Jane in her turn drove to the airport to meet girls.
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Friday we drove to Bunny Flat parking on the slope of Mt. Shasta and slept in volcanic dust 100 feet away from the cars. Early in the morning we started climb to Lake Helen - 3000 m (10,443 feet). There we pitched our two tents (there were 6 of us - Alik, Lena, Vadik, Misha, Luba and me) and had a great lunch.
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The process of feeding was endless and ended by drinking a bottle of Stolichnya vodka. The English-speaking neighbors took a sip from our bottle too, exclaiming "Slava KPSS!" (in Russian: Hurrah to the communist party of Soviet Union). There were around 60 people camping at Lake Helen this night.
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| We admired a beautiful sunset.
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We continued our climb next morning at 6 am under a full moon. We took the popular Avalanche Gulch route. Everybody was wearing heavy plastic boots, crampons and had an ice axe.
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Under Red Buffs we spend some time in a snow crack hiding from the fallen rocks. The Misery hill climb was not too eazy for everybody.
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We summited at 11 am . There was a crowd of 50-70 people on the top. We took a video shot , part of it you can see now by cliking HERE. It covers the passing of the most steep part - Red Buffs and our triumph on the top of Shasta 4,317m (14,162 feet).
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Shasta is a volcano. A small crater in the summit dome contains several fumaroles and an acidic hot spring. The ground around them was very heated. I washed my face at the hot spring and picked a bit of the mud for mud bathing. Everything there smells like rotten eggs. This is real volcanic activity!
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On the top snow was formed into
strange pikes by strong wind.
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| The desend was much faster.
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When we return back to our camp at 3 PM we found that one of our tents was blown away 300 meters down the slope. I was really stressed. This was a good lesson for me - for now on I will collapse tent and put some rocks on the top when leave for a long time. We spend too much time recovering the tent and when we descended to parking lot it was too late to go anywhere. So we drove home very tired.
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Back at home Jane, Lena, Rita, Lina were having a great time sightseeing San Francisco. Pictures were taken all over the place, here they are on our balcony. Monday night we went to Columbus street for bars and restaurants. Tuesday Rita and Lena flew back to New York. Another long weekend passed by a little too quickly.
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Photos by Stas Yurkevich |
