My First Time Climbing Mt. Shasta
by Dave Smith at Dejsmith@aol.com

Posted on Saturday June 20,1998

Hi Steve, my name is Dave Smith. My son and I attended your talk at REI in Berkeley last month and bought your book, "Climbing Mt Shasta." I thought you might be interested in my perspective relative to your book as we attempted to summit this past weekend. I found your book to be extremely informative, helpful, and easy to read. I consider myself to be an experienced camper and back packer, with many weeks in the high Sierras and Rockies, and hikes up Mt Whitney, Pikes Peak, Mt Fuji, Mt Washington. Even so, I was not prepared for what we encountered on Mt Shasta. I am sure much of that was my cockiness. Although I am 50, I still run 30 miles per week and run 10Ks in about 42 minutes. After our experience on Mt Shasta, I would label any time on it as "extreme camping" and "extreme hiking."

I am rereading your book with some amusement as all the problems we had; you mentioned. The problem was you were not forceful enough in your descriptions of the potential dangers and I was not open enough to consider your cautions as seriously as I should have. I will explain. But let me say, we had a very interesting and memorable experience and my son and I learned a lot about each other. By the way, you have probably gathered we did not make it to the top. That was our mutual decision based on weather conditions, inexperience, and fear rather than our physical conditions. We have learned from this experience, though, and I am sure we will try again.

Anyway, we started Friday, 6/12. The day before the Mountain had received quite a bit of new snow to add to its 20+ feet. We started with snow shoes and ski poles from Bunny Flat. There were 7 in our party. Four had summitted before (3 multiple times, but each turned back by weather at least once). Weather was calm and sunny. People were stripping down from the heat created by our bodies from exertion. That was a mistake for my son who is fair skinned even though he put on sun screen (unfortunately not often enough as we found out after the trip when his sunburns blistered). About half an hour past the Sierra Hut, we got smart and worked as a team to "fight" the new snow which was causing our snowshoes to sink about 6 inches and our poles to "posthole" sometimes all the way to the handles. We went single file with the lead "packing" down the snow for the others to step in. This made it much easier for the rest, and we switched off leading every 5 minutes or so. It still took us about 5 hours from the hut to get to Helen Lake.

We were going straight up the Avalanche Gulch route. All other groups were either going up Casaval Ridge or Green Butte. At Helen Lake we all started digging out spots for tents, setting up tents, and melting snow. Then the wind picked up. One tent with only sleeping bags inside and obviously not secured into the snow well enough blew off the mountain. We all watched it take about 10 minutes to get to the bottom. It was about 5:00 p.m. and those 2 (1 a 4-time summitter and the other a 1-time) had to go down. They also decided the conditions were too tough to come back up, so they would stay at the hut with some other friends they ran into there (by the way, they found their tent, bags and pads). The rest of us spent quite a bit more time further securing our tents as the winds were really picking up now. We were the only people at Helen.

Many people were concerned about avalanches. We figured as long as we stayed in the middle up to Helen (the relatively small slides we saw were from the ridges) and then left early enough the next morning to get up and back, we would not have a problem. We got out of camp at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. One of the other multiple summitters got a bad case of food poisoning or altitude sickness and was throwing up quite severely with really bad headaches. He went with us the first half hour or so and then turned back. So now there was one experienced "mountaineer" with me and 2 teenagers (none of us 3 had summitted before). The winds were very strong all the night before and even stronger this day. The "mountaineer" and the stronger 15-year old, started getting ahead of me and my 13-year old son. The winds were just very tough on my son (although he is relatively strong, in shape and a "veteran" hiker/back packer, he only weighs 80 pounds). Each stronger gust would require us to "hunker" into the mountain with me putting one of my hands on his back. The crampons and ice axe helped keep us on the mountain as advertised, but as the steepness near the Red Banks increased so did my fears. We struggled to just below the Red Banks when we mutually decided that since there was no one else on the mountain around us (our other 2 were now at the Red Banks), that we should go back. I just could not put my fears aside, especially for my son.

As we started back to Helen, we now saw others arriving at Helen. We had committed, though, and were confident we had made a good decision for us based on conditions. At Helen I let my son take a nap before we had lunch and took down our tent and packed. Two others (who really wanted our site) helped us take down our tent due the continuing very strong winds. They were going to just spend the whole day there and try the next day since this high was supposed to go through by late afternoon and conditions would be "perfect" the next day. As we started down from Helen, we passed many people who were just coming up to Helen to ski or snowboard down. The "mountaineer" and 15-year old made it to the top.

We all regrouped at the Sierra Hut; changed at Bunny Flat; then went to town to celebrate our adventure at a German restaurant in Shasta City. I know this has gotten long. I am writing it for myself as much as to provide you with some ideas on what to reinforce or to highlight for "inexperienced" people like me. I do not know how you make us listen, but your next edition should attempt to make us understand the extreme nature of what we are attempting. Thank you again for your book. I will reread it again and then again before we attempt next time. Good climbing to you. Dave Smith

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