Mt. Shasta-Wintum Glacier
I had taken the week off work including the Friday before to attend a NOLS Wilderness First Responder course held up in the Marin Headlands. The class was held in the old YMCA near the old lighthouse at the mouth of the Golden Gate. A beautiful spot indeed. The first day when we broke for lunch I decided to hike down to the beach with my sandwich and have some solo time. When I arrived on the beach I noticed that two Bottle-Nosed dolphins were playing just off the shore of this little cove. I found a perch atop a large rock that I had to scramble up to and sat there to enjoy the show which went on for about the next twenty minutes.
We were scheduled to have that Wednesday off and since I had taken the entire week off work, my plan was to head to Yosemite Valley. A one day one night mission is definitely not unheard of by local Bay Area climbers. However, as much as I love the Valley, alpine is where my true heart is. Maybe this comes from spending two years living in the Himali durning my Peace Corps time or maybe I just love the altitude. Regardless, the material covered during Tuesday's lecture was HACE, HAPE and AMS and to top it off, we watched case studies filmed at Everest Base Camp. "Enough!" I texted Kat with the somewhat crazy idea of a door to door push up the Wintum Glacier on Shasta.
It's lucky I have friends with psyche that matches mine because to most people, this would seem like a sign to call the psychiatrist. Fortunately and unfortunately, Kat was flying out on a red eye out of SFO and needed to be at the airport by 9 pm Wednesday night. Feasible? Yeah sure why not. We were on the road by 8 on Tuesday night, driving north on I-80 and I-5 headed for the mountain.
The backroad to the Brewer's Creek Trailhead is a fun road to drive out on. It's a smooth fire road that you can bomb down before it gets rough and rocky and you bounce along the last 20 minutes. We arrived at the trailhead by 1 am and by 1:30 we were packed and on the trail. I knew that there was going to be a meteor shower that night and once we broke out of the tree-line we had one hell of a show. By the time the sun started to brighten the eastern horizon we had already made our way a good distance up the mountain. We had decided however that 10 am would be the ultimate turn-around time if we were going to make it to SFO by 9 pm. This was based on the calculation (or assumption) that it would take about 5 hours to get back to the car and 6 to get from the trailhead to the terminal at SFO, give or take.
Around sunrise we strapped on our crampons and started ascending the Wintum Glacier. The climb was extremely easy despite the complete exhaustion and the fact that we literally went from sea level (we had run scenario's in class on Tuesday dragging people from the surf) to 11,500 ft at this point. Normally I will rarely ever feel the altitude, especially only being 11,500 up. However, at this point in the trip I couldn't keep my eyes open and I was a little nauseous. I asked Kat if I could sit down and just close my eyes for a second. We worked our way over to the rocky ridge that divides the glacier field and we both closed our eyes while sitting up. our heads against a rock.
Fifteen or 20 minutes later, I opened my eyes and to my surprise was feeling 100% better...almost. I went for the wag bag and realized we didn't have any. Shit! Indeed. I found some old plastic bags and a ziplock that I kept the toilet paper in and went behind the rock. It's amazing what a little sleep and a large VBM (Vertical Bowel Movement) will do. After that I was up and racing; my head feeling 100% better and my body ready to climb.
Unfortunately, we were running out of time, and after an hour our time was up. Our crampons had turned into pumpkins and we needed to get to the airport. Oh well. I'll get to the top of this mountain some day. We had ascended from 7000 at the trailhead to 12500 ft and now it was time to get down.
We dragged our worked and wary bodies into the parking lot and amazingly with about a hour to spare. So we did the only wise thing to do with this extra hour, we slept. Kat pulled her sleeping bag out and laid it on the ground and I got in the drivers seat and lowered the seat back.
By 3pm we were on the road again and headed straight for SFO. We both climbed well and although I was disappointed at not summitting, I was happy that we had put our bodies through a serious endurance test and came out stronger for it. Kat got on her plane headed for the east coast, woke up after a few hours of sleep, put on a dress (that showed off her off-width battle scars) and went to a wedding brunch. I headed home to get in my 6 hours of sleep before class the next day. Sleep never felt so damn good.
We were scheduled to have that Wednesday off and since I had taken the entire week off work, my plan was to head to Yosemite Valley. A one day one night mission is definitely not unheard of by local Bay Area climbers. However, as much as I love the Valley, alpine is where my true heart is. Maybe this comes from spending two years living in the Himali durning my Peace Corps time or maybe I just love the altitude. Regardless, the material covered during Tuesday's lecture was HACE, HAPE and AMS and to top it off, we watched case studies filmed at Everest Base Camp. "Enough!" I texted Kat with the somewhat crazy idea of a door to door push up the Wintum Glacier on Shasta.
It's lucky I have friends with psyche that matches mine because to most people, this would seem like a sign to call the psychiatrist. Fortunately and unfortunately, Kat was flying out on a red eye out of SFO and needed to be at the airport by 9 pm Wednesday night. Feasible? Yeah sure why not. We were on the road by 8 on Tuesday night, driving north on I-80 and I-5 headed for the mountain.
The backroad to the Brewer's Creek Trailhead is a fun road to drive out on. It's a smooth fire road that you can bomb down before it gets rough and rocky and you bounce along the last 20 minutes. We arrived at the trailhead by 1 am and by 1:30 we were packed and on the trail. I knew that there was going to be a meteor shower that night and once we broke out of the tree-line we had one hell of a show. By the time the sun started to brighten the eastern horizon we had already made our way a good distance up the mountain. We had decided however that 10 am would be the ultimate turn-around time if we were going to make it to SFO by 9 pm. This was based on the calculation (or assumption) that it would take about 5 hours to get back to the car and 6 to get from the trailhead to the terminal at SFO, give or take.
Around sunrise we strapped on our crampons and started ascending the Wintum Glacier. The climb was extremely easy despite the complete exhaustion and the fact that we literally went from sea level (we had run scenario's in class on Tuesday dragging people from the surf) to 11,500 ft at this point. Normally I will rarely ever feel the altitude, especially only being 11,500 up. However, at this point in the trip I couldn't keep my eyes open and I was a little nauseous. I asked Kat if I could sit down and just close my eyes for a second. We worked our way over to the rocky ridge that divides the glacier field and we both closed our eyes while sitting up. our heads against a rock.
Fifteen or 20 minutes later, I opened my eyes and to my surprise was feeling 100% better...almost. I went for the wag bag and realized we didn't have any. Shit! Indeed. I found some old plastic bags and a ziplock that I kept the toilet paper in and went behind the rock. It's amazing what a little sleep and a large VBM (Vertical Bowel Movement) will do. After that I was up and racing; my head feeling 100% better and my body ready to climb.
Unfortunately, we were running out of time, and after an hour our time was up. Our crampons had turned into pumpkins and we needed to get to the airport. Oh well. I'll get to the top of this mountain some day. We had ascended from 7000 at the trailhead to 12500 ft and now it was time to get down.
We dragged our worked and wary bodies into the parking lot and amazingly with about a hour to spare. So we did the only wise thing to do with this extra hour, we slept. Kat pulled her sleeping bag out and laid it on the ground and I got in the drivers seat and lowered the seat back.
By 3pm we were on the road again and headed straight for SFO. We both climbed well and although I was disappointed at not summitting, I was happy that we had put our bodies through a serious endurance test and came out stronger for it. Kat got on her plane headed for the east coast, woke up after a few hours of sleep, put on a dress (that showed off her off-width battle scars) and went to a wedding brunch. I headed home to get in my 6 hours of sleep before class the next day. Sleep never felt so damn good.