High pressure in the Wasatch last weekend turned our focus elsewhere. After looking around the west we found that Mount Shasta had a favorable weather forecast and stable avalanche conditions. We packed up and headed out to see what we would find.

First view of 14,179ft Mount Shasta
We arrived mid day and hiked in to camp low on the Avalanche Gulch route
Jonah-primary camera man, pack mule, morale officer, token AT skier
Noah-secondary camera, unofficial guide, telewhacker
Jake-primary skier, secondary skier, rap artist

Andy Jacobsen-primary photographer (no photos of him since he was taking photos, nice photo’s Andy), secondary skier, back-up tent anchor.

We set up camp and noticed a beautiful but ominous cloud forming over the summit.
Winds were gusty to maybe 30mph, which was manageable
Some sunset turns on boiler plate snow
We kept waiting for Jesus or some Lemurians to descend from this other worldly  cloud that hovered near by
Turns out it was just us for supper, so we enjoyed the sunset and lasagna

Just as we were slipping into our sleeping bags the winds took a 90 degree change and were blasting the tents broadside. Winds started gusting to 60mph by our guesstimates. We were at such a low elevation that we didn’t expect to see anything like this. For that reason we hadn’t built up snow walls, which is standard practice. The gusts were completely flattening the larger tent despite our attempts to guy it out with skis. Before we could break it down a pole snapped, that ripped the fly, and our shelter was no longer habitable. We packed everything up in the dark, grasping packs and skis so they didn’t blow away. Then retreated back to the trailhead. It was the most intense wind any of us had directly experienced.

Jake ready to descend from somewhere around 10k feet in the Avalanche Gulch

The next morning a huge lenticular capped the peak and our hopes of skiing off the summit were 3% according to Andy. We skinned as high as we could before all four of us were blown off our feet. That seemed like a reasonable time to turn around to all of us, so we did. The ski out was really nice corn for most of the way.

We laughed about the near disasta, or wind blasta on Shasta as we headed back home
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