Shasta emerges as forgotten diamond
From the foot of Avalanche Gulch this week, 14,179-foot Mount Shasta rose like a sunwashed diamond against a cobalt-blue sky.
On cross-country skis, Jennifer Carr ventured across the moraines at the foot of the gulch. From 8,000 feet, she peered across the high slopes. Not a single person was in sight for miles across the mountain bowl and slopes up to snowcovered Red Bank at 12,800 feet.
From a light snowfall the night before, a few inches of sugar provided a white velvet carpet across the hard-pack base beneath. It was the perfect surface for cross-country skiing, hiking, snowshoeing, glissading, or for the ambitious few, to trek up one of the high ridges and then ski or snowboard down into one of Shasta’s vast bowls.
Ryan Ghefi, a local legend for speed climbing the summit in summer, climbed Green Butte Ridge to roughly 11,500 feet and then skied down into Avalanche Gulch. He carved his way down nearly 4,000 feet of vertical en route to tree line at 8,000 and then the trailhead at Bunny Flat at 6,950 feet.
Mount Shasta has emerged as a recreation diamond amid this winter’s giant snow totals and Lake Tahoe’s crowds, high prices and traffic jams. Shasta is the anti-Tahoe. It provides some of the best freelance-style winter recreation and low-cost lodging and restaurants anywhere in the Western U.S., as well as a small ski area that is having one of its best seasons.
The town of Mount Shasta has two shops, Fifth Season and Shasta Base Camp, with rental equipment for winter sports, an outstanding team of guides for winter treks at Shasta Mountain Guides, and long one of the most respected mountain-safety teams in the Western U.S. at the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center.
On my visit, I ran into Chris Carr, the owner of Shasta Mountain Guides, and Nick Meyers, the lead climbing ranger and director of the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center.
“We’re looking at a fantastic season of backcountry skiing on Shasta,” Carr said. “We will have great conditions well into summer.”
Meyers did make a point of reminding everybody to check for avalanche conditions before venturing into the backcountry.
From the town of Mount Shasta, two-lane Everitt Memorial Highway is plowed clear to the trailhead at Bunny Flat at 6,950 feet. You arrive to a 10foot snowpack and drifts as high as 25 feet.
On good weather days, there are often hundreds of cars at Bunny Flat. What you will find, however, is that most visitors are curiosity seekers on long Interstate 5 road trips who see the mountain and decide to take a break and drive up to the snow as a side trip. Mount Shasta and its magnetic attraction can do that to you. In turn, many don’t venture farther than 50 yards or so from the parking area.
Once you set off from Bunny Flat, you leave the people behind, and after a mile or so, it can feel like you have paradise to yourself.
This is how to do it, easy-to-challenging:
Go for a walk, easy: When you arrive at Bunny Flat, strap on a pair of Yaktrax and walk up the snow-covered Forest Road to the Old Ski Bowl. Yaktrax are lightweight wire coils that are strapped on the bottom of each of your shoes in seconds. They cost about $20 and make it easy to walk across hardened snow or ice, essentially acting as chains do on car tires. At the head of the parking lot, there is a snow-buried gate with a mostly buried sign alongside. This is the trailhead. Beyond is a well-traveled route that leads 2.4 miles to the site of the Old Ski Bowl, wiped out by an avalanche in 1978. Peering up, you get a view of the Old Ski Bowl, a huge mountain bowl, and beyond past several crags to the edge of Misery Hill near the summit. To the south, you can see Lake Siskiyou and down the Sacramento River canyon, and get a unique perspective of the spired tops of the Crags.
Cross-country ski, easy to
moderate (two trips): Out of Bunny Flat, Shasta Mountain Guides leads a stellar trek that ventures up across the foot of Avalanche Gulch. Looking up, it feels as if the entire mountain is within your reach. Worldclass beauty, this one. Another option: On the drive up to Bunny Flat, you’ll pass (on your left) the Sand Flat Trailhead. This is the launch point for an easy but fun cross-country ski route. This is a relatively flat, slightly undulating route on a Forest Service Road that leads through a pretty forest of red fir to a spot called Sand Flat (a wilderness trailhead in summer).
Trek to Green Butte, moderate to challenging: From Bunny Flat, break off above the parking area. With snowshoes or crampons (choose which depending on snow surface), it’s a rhythmic trek (unless you have to break trail in powder) through forest. It climbs gently at first, then more steeply up to the tree line. You emerge and venture up an exposed slope to a massive volcanic outcrop called Green Butte at 9,193 feet. This is a 2-mile climb with a gain of 2,293 feet. On each side of you, deep mountain bowls plunge below. You also get spectacular long-distance views to the south and east. You then can sail back down, your choice of methods: simulate snow skating with hiking boots (take off your crampons, of course), glissade, board or ski.
Ridgetop ski or board, experts only: Start this adventure by trekking to Green Butte, as described above. Then, with crampons on boots, trace the ridgeline up to about 11,000 feet. Avalanche Gulch plunges to your left, the Old Ski Bowl below to your right. When ready, strap on your board or skis and carve your way down the Avalanche Gulch bowl, roughly 3,500 feet of vertical. Take your time, remember that you must rely only on yourself out here, and you will elevate the sport into the euphoric.