Descend
Mt.
Shasta
(Sunday,
June
30, 2003)
And
now, we descend. Near the bottom of the summit pinnacle is a sulphur spring. Hot
water bubbling out of the ground at this elevation is a reminder that you are on
top of a dormant (for now) volcano.
One
of the sulphur spring vents. Very smelly.
We
recovered our crampons on the way down. And also my helmet. We realized after
getting to the top that I left my helmet lying on the rocks where we took our
break. I’m wearing Bob’s helmet in the summit pictures because we wanted to look
cool.
As
you can imagine, the climb down was a piece of cake compared to going up. The
views were incredible. You don’t tend to notice them so much on the way up.
View
of Shastina from the summit snow field.
Clarence
King
Lake
sits like a bright aqua sapphire in Shastina’s caldera (hard to see in the
picture, but vivid in person).
We
walked in crampons until we got to the hill above the Red Banks, then we took
them off and started glissading.
Jeff
demonstrating the proper technique for using his ice ax as a brake. The snow was
quite hard above the Red Banks and I ended up with large bruises on both sides
of my butt and legs from hitting the protrusions on each side of the chute.
View
from the driver’s seat. The top of the Red Banks can be seen on the right. From
there it drops away steeply to
Helen
Lake.
Bob
taking a run down the chute.
Glissading chute below the Red Banks.
Helen
Lake
can be seen below with very few tents left. Note the scattered rocks that have
fallen from the Red Banks.
Below
the Red Banks the snow was soft and the glissading was steep and very fast.
Better than a roller coaster ride. We glissaded almost all the way to
Helen
Lake.
Once we got below the Red Banks and out of the wind, it warmed up considerably
and I had to stop and take off my jacket.
Back
at camp we were exhausted. Glissading is very tiring. It took us less than two
hours to descend the same distance it took us nine hours to ascend. I called
Shauney to let her know our progress. I told her to meet us at Bunny Flat at
7pm
if she did not hear from me again. That worked out well because I didn’t have
cell service once we got below
Helen
Lake.
We
took a short rest and then broke camp. By
4pm
we were headed down the mountain. The snow was slushy and uneven making it very
difficult to walk with full packs. We glissaded wherever possible, but it takes
a pretty steep slope to overcome the resistance of sliding on your butt with a
full pack behind. Bob lost is water bottle on one glissade and we never found
it.
Somewhere after Horse Camp we inadvertently got off of the main trail (yes, Jeff
was leading at the time). We stopped to check Bob’s GPS and shortly afterward
merged back onto the main trail not far out of Bunny Flat. As we came down the
last stretch of trail to the parking lot, we could hear the girls yelling for
us. It was a good feeling. We arrived a little after
7pm.
End
of the trail. Two very tired climbers.
We told the story of our adventures as we drove back into
town.
The girls prepared a surprise for us.
The first order of business at the KOA was to take a long
hot shower. After, we had a nice BBQ dinner and celebrated with several bottles
of champagne over more tales of our trip. |
