Category: Trip Reports

Been there stories.

TR (’94): Skiing the Wickersham Wall – Part I

A slide now, while skiing in the center of the upper face, would carry me over 10,000-feet over cliffs and icefalls to a frozen, broken death. But we were confident in the results of our snow stability tests and I was having the run of my life, the culmination of every moment I’ve ever spent in the mountains. The higher power, grinning from ear-to-ear, had given us the nod. We got away with it!

TR: Mt. Shasta, Hotlum Glacier

  This is my favorite time of year. Early summer corn season at Shasta! As usual, I was jibbing solo. The plan was to head to the east side. I didn’t really have a plan beyond that, just trying to get some good turns. Ended up skiing something a bit different than usual. The hunt …

Keep making backcountry turns

TR: Mt. Shasta via Brewer Creek

The highlight of the trip though was Emily. Not because she’s young, vivacious, and full of energy, which she is, but because she had consciously chosen to embrace ski mountaineering with a free heel. As she said in her classic Ernie voice, “it just made more sense, it looked more like what I wanted to do, what I was coming from with snowboarding.”

TR: Mt. Shasta – Jibbing from Coquette Falls

Mt. Shasta from the north

The Coquette Falls TH is the only way I’ll be accessing the north side from now on. It provides DIRECT access to the bottom of the Bolam Glacier with a straight line to the summit from there. The road isn’t that bad. Glenn proved a Subie can make it.

TR: Shasta’s West Face

Moving past the Heart seemed to take forever and it nearly broke my resolve to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The crunchy, still frozen surface did not feel like it would soften for a good descent and it was already 11am.

TR: Sick trip to Shasta’s N-side.

Not wanting to waste an 11 hour round trip drive, I decided to keep to the plan.

Hull Mt. March 28, 2012

The scaled skis worked well without the use of skins. The snow was still fresh. Breaking trail in fresh snow at Hull usually means sinking in a few inches. Wet, dense snow that sticks to everything. This day was no exception.