[TR] Mt Shasta - Casaval Ridge 4/18/2009

[111]

Trip: Mt Shasta - Casaval Ridge

 

Date: 4/18/2009

 

Trip Report:

Myself and 7 others headed to shasta last weekend for a quickie. We split into 2 groups with my team climbing Casaval Ridge and the other group skinning up from Shastina. I couldn't ask for nicer weather for the trip, though it was a bit hot during the day. Everything that was gonna slide went of Friday according to a climbing ranger, so we weren't too worried about triggering slides. The cooldown at night made for as good of snow walking as I have ever experienced, with it getting a little mushy during the heat of the day. We made good time up to our bivy spot at around 9500 ft on the ridge.

A bit of a side story; There were two tents near us from other climbers who came down late Sat. they arrived at camp, broke down one tent, hung around for a few hours and then descended. Then, right about dusk, a lone lady comes down, having reversed the whole ridge to get down, and asks if we had seen her climbing partners. we told her they left 2-3 hrs before for the car. she was beat and decided to spend one more night on the ridge, but was soon back asking for a stove to melt snow once she realized her partners had taken all the group gear. We were flabbergasted that her partners would leave her like that, so I loaned my stove out for the night. Right when we were going to sleep, I figured we'd call the sheriff and let him know if her partners try to activate SAR, to tell them they are dumbasses for splitting up and to wait till morning for her to come down. Sure enough, later sunday I talked to the climbing ranger and that is exactly what they tried to do but they waited till 2 am to call.

Ok, back to the TR: we woke in the morning and pretty much had the ridge to ourselves. The only variation from the route was to climb to the east side of the ridge through the First Window(~11,500) to avoid a steep face with very hard snow and a large cornice on it. two of us had a second tool and would have been fine on that face I think, but with a single walking axe, it would have been a little sketch for the other two guys. We got back on the west side through the Second Window and proceeded to have a great time climbing the rest of the route. I must say, it was definitely one of the most fun routes I have climbed. Nothing too scary, interesting and varied, and we didnt need to f- around with ropes. Just perfect climbing. Topped out in almost exactly 7 hours, but without our detour through the windows, I think 6.5 hours would be a very reasonable time. The glissade trail was a long one too; it started as soon as you got through the red banks on AG. Even the post holing wasn't as bad as expected on the way out.

 

Gear Notes:

no ropes, brought second tool, but it was unnecessary for most of the route. (having a second tool would have been very handy if we had stayed on the west side the whole way as the face with the cornice around 11500-12000 was very hard snow.)

 

Approach Notes:

4-5 ft of snow in the parking lot. nice boot track for the first half of the ridge. the catwalk isnt as scary as we were told. no worse than the top of leuthold to summit traverse on top of Hood.

[EastKing]

Great TR and pics. A bunch of us were planning on going up Shasta via Avalanche Gulch and Lake Helen the day after Memorial Day. Reading your trip report might make us look at this route instead.

[Chriznitch]

nice pics. I remember seeing you guys. We heard about the missing lady on Sunday from some snowmobilers, funny how common sense seems to evade some folks.

Greg, with this heat I wouldn't expect Casaval to be in good shape by Memorial Day. But some are saying that this will be a cooler summer...

[Ptown_Climber1]

Awesome! I love Mt. Shasta, and have yet to climb this route, despite gearing from everyone how cool it is. I gotta get down there and climb it, but probably will wait until next season. Thanks for sharing.

 

Go Beavs, by the way (noticed someone with the OSU hat)! Last summer when I climbed Shasta via West Face Gully I noticed someone had left an OSU Mountaineering Flag in the summit box....good effort.

[111]

OMG! my climbing partner must have left it last time we were up there!(certainly not me, noooo sir!) shit, thats where it went! we climbed AG last time.

Edited April 28, 2009 by 111