This makes my last 3 or 4 times in a row going up the same route, I love this north side of the mountain. Todd O and I found wintery firm stuff from 12-13,500 and good smooth untracked snow everywhere below that. Oddly the bottom was perfect firm corn snow in the afternoon. Oh, and the top 1000' as usual is NASTY. Icy bumpy lumps with good looking patches of snow inbetween that aren't large enough for turning on. We did piece together a few turns up there however, and wind died down to soften it just enough. You can always just walk through it and not ski of course.

This black line shows our ski descent. We went up the normal Hotlam Bolam route to the left of that. 7700' with about 7000' of snow to ski. The forest has no snow from the trailhead up to the flat bench (not sure what it's called). Skip the trail and look at your topo map if you are in a hurry and save a mile.










We met a lone snowboarder up there. He had a system I've seen growing in popularity for real backcountry touring, Dynafit TLT 5 boots and Dynafit toe pieces on the splitboard. This is the way to go. Soft boots can work since you have crampons anyway, but this is way better. For much of this climb you don't want crampons on your feet, just the plastic boots.


Here is the top of the Hotlam Bolum snow gully at 13k. I've gone straight through those rocks before, but it's easy to wrap around to the right and go look for better snow and less exposure to reach the summit. It does get steep and firm up there. The other routes are a little less sketchy for a beginner.


snow right here....not so good


Todd goes into the sketchy firm and bumpy area and pieces together some firm winter snow patches. I've been up this route nearly 10 times, and it's always been like this even with no wind.




At about 12,500' the snow gets really good. We skied down that wide path inbetween the HB ridge and the Bolam Glacier.










short crossover, we did get snow below this point. Last year we skied to within a 10 minute walk of the car, on June 20th. This year we walked for about 45 minutes.


View of the south side from the town of Mount Shasta. Lookin' good!


pano from near the summit, which is just out of view to the left.


Summit pano

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

Nice! Was up there the day before this on Hotlum Wintun (ended up skiing mostly Wintun due to crappy snow on the former)
I bet you ran into Buell. I've never met him but I almost hooked up with him on this trip but decided to do a day shot. The day before I saw him climbing Shastina from the summit. I may try to head up again mid week after this next storm to find some windbuffed.

It was nice to meet and climb with you and Todd. Bgnight mentioned that he figured I was the lone snowboarder you had referred to. I turned around a few hundred feet above the top of the ramp where the snow got so ugly that I would not have even been able to survival ride it. I figured you and Todd left the tracks down the middle of the Bolam but it looks like we took the same route down from the top (the first part of it anyway).

Nice Trip Report.
Saw you guys come down. We were on the lower Bolam.
Accessed via the Coquette Falls TH.
Drove to within a 20 minute hike to the Wilderness Boundary.


Here is your run before you dropped it.


These are our tracks.


We got to watch a couple folks rip the north side of Shastina.


We watched as they proceeded to skin back up


Met them at Lola's later - they were 20-something years old Shasta Guides.
They said they left Bunny Flat and dropped the north
side of Shastina and returned to Bunny flat.
8am departure from Bunny Flat
1pm - dropped Shastina's north side
4:30pm - we met them at the restaurant.

:shock:

damn kids!

Someone else had a nice line.
Are those your tracks on skiers right?



North Gate TH blows.
The Coquette Falls TH is the shiznit.

:wink:

_________________
Coastal Crest Snow Patrol
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"damn kids"
lol I agree, but earlier this month a guy I know in his early 50's left bunny flat around 5am. Dropped the north side of Shastina and skinned up Whitney Glacier to drop Trinity chutes at noon! Age isn't a factor in speed.

Hey jibmaster, how would that Coquette Falls TH be for accessing Shastina for a day trip? I was thinking of using it to do 2 laps on it. Is that trailhead around 7k? I figure 2 laps on Shastina would put it at a bout a 7200 foot day which is less than 1 lap on Hotlum Wintun or Hot-Bolam. Sounds like a better plan than doing from Bunny flat and skinning back up. You only get 1 lap on the north face that way and climb the same amount of vertical.

Do you have a map? How's the road? I have a Tacoma so not really too worried.

Thanks jib, I'm ready to try a new traihead.

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

My trip on 5/29:









Buell is a tiny speck on Shastina's ridge:

jib, those are my tracks on far skiers right in your photo of the Bolam Glacier. I had thought Mike and Todd put in the tracks down the middle of the Bolam but it sounds like it might have been the other two skiers that were just at the top of the ramp when I started riding. I watched you guys skinning across to your high point and making your turns. I figured you were headed to Shastina but that area you were in looks pretty cool.

BG, so cool that you have a pic of me on Shastina from Shasta from Tuesday. So nice to finally ride it. The top 500 feet was bullet proof, then 1000 feet of powder, then mixed mush/powder/wind affected snow. I was grinning big!

Fun stuff.

Here are a couple from Shastina.



Bear! It had not passed long before I crossed its track judging from the condition of the foot prints.

We saw lots of bear tracks where we were.
No one goes to this TH.
There were tire tracks however.
Also some skinnier tire tracks from either a 4wheeler
or a motorcycle. I think the rednecks use this TH.
I made up the name 'cause the road ends in a trail that leads to Coquette Falls
in the deep Bolam Creek drainage. Reminded me of Mud Creek, but not as deep.
If you remember, a few years ago, part of the Bolam collapsed and made a huge
ice damn/lake that soon melted and the water and debris went down Bolam Creek and destroyed
the Bolam TH. It also covered highway 97 in 8-10 feet of rocks and debris for about
1-2 miles wide. I remember driving into the Bolam TH that next spring (mid 90's, I think).
Awesome fresh carnage!

Anyways, the road IS rough, but switchtele's Subaru Forester made it no problem.
Well, there were a few rocks moved and lines scoped out, but his vehicle got no damage
except for a bunch of manzanita scrapes on the way out.
We took another way out - Bolam Rd.
I had a BLAST in the Jeep! :D

I'm working on the TR for this past trip,
but it's the same place as my trip on May 2nd.
http://www.earnyourturns.com/11005/shas ... e-02may12/

If you have a map of all the roads - I got one that I got 20 years ago.
I don't think it's still available.
But a proper Forest Service map will get you there.
I'll give you kids a jump start on my TR...

Directions:
Head to North Gate. I'm sure you've all seen this sign:

This is road 42N34

42N16 is the road where you take a right off of Military Pass Rd. (43N19)

----
yea i no its complikated, yu got a map bro? itllll allmakesense...
-----

Take that road to 42N33 (Bolam Logging Road)

Between my map and Google Earth, there are differences...
But it's real easy to just follow the tire tracks and follow your nose.
Where we parked, my watch said 7100' and switchtele's read 7300'.

We drove in as described above, but drove out via Bolam Road (43N21).
I would say Bolam Road is just as rough as the main drag to North Gate.
Just because of all the road cups (washboard) on the main route.
I hate road cups!!!

A bit of clearance helps - big rocks and deep ruts
will offer to give pause, but there is always a route through...
The Jeep, of course, was just plain fun!

Here is a visual of my map.


This would be an excellent way to access the north side of Shastina.
We thought of cruising over there.
We drove to about a 20 minute hike to the Wilderness Boundary.
I might use this TH a few more times before I head over to Brewer Creek.
But what you might want to consider is the fact that this place melts
out first(the north side in general).
This would be a SWEET trip really early in the spring.
It offers DIRECT access to the bottom of the Bolam glacier.

check out my Flickr account.
Here, I used the search function for you:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Coquett ... %40N08&z=e

I'm totally undermining my TR on earnyourturns - don't tell Dostie! :lol: :wink:
I've already received over 700 hits on my Flickr account in the past 3 days...

The gullies in the woods offer excellent skiing.
Can't get lost - we parked @ a 5 minute walk from Bolam Creek gully.
Shastina's north side will be going off for at least another month.

The road without my photoshop directional arrows is road 42N18.
Very smooth sandy road. But a tad confusing. I was going to head
that way on the way out, but missed it and we were committed to
exiting via Bolam Rd.

It was a rush exploring terrain in the Jeep Wrangler, that I haven't seen in years.
Some of these roads I have only traveled in my - all original - '61 Jeep Willy's Wagon.
Used to get a month off about this time of year - for years...back in the 90's.
Travel from TH -TH as they opened up - every year...




AnyHull - hope that helps, this really is the best north side TH. Seriously - no joke.
DIRECT TH to summit access to the north side and very close to the north side of Shastina.

Just a bit of clearance on your vehicle/imaginative driving... and your good to go.

_________________
Coastal Crest Snow Patrol
http://www.zazzle.com/jibmaster
http://www.earnyourturns.com/3878/ccsp-guide-2-mendocino/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jibmaster/

Thanks for all the north side beta Brent!^^

Yesterday was all time on Shasta. I drove up from Reno with rughty (Ken). The mountain received well over a foot up high. Everything down low was perfectly smoothed out. Bunny flat is about a 20 minute walk to skinable snow. Storm came in from the SW but finished with strong north winds. Avy gulch had the best skinning conditions I've seen or could have imagined. Like a smooth sidewalk down low and perfect dense pow up high. Easy skinning all the way to thumb rock! Winds were nuking the whole day though and at times you'd almost get knocked off your feet. High wind chills even with the strong June sun. Trinity/Red banks had fantastic dense, winter pow. The line off the top of Misery hill down into Kowokiton looked all time too. It would have been a perfect day to hit that! 3k feet of perfect pow to upper Mud Cr. The winds slowly died down as we got higher and they finally almost came to an end the moment we were strapping in. It was like someone turn a switch off. As soon as we dropped there wasn't a breath in the trinities and you could feel the sun starting to do it's thing. Any later and the snow would have been affected. We only saw 7 skiers. 5 hit left of heart and 2 through the red banks. We had trinities to ourselves!

I wish I had taken some pics of the wind coming off Trinities and Thumb Rock earlier in the morning. but it was easier to take pictures with the wind looking down lol. My hands would instantly freeze when I took my glove off. It was probably a sustained 40-60mph north wind up high in the morning with huge snow streamers coming off the top of Trinities loading up upper Avy gulch with fresh snow. Luckily the snow was stable even in wind loaded areas.

I had lowered my expectations driving up until we saw this!:




Ken topping out hill before Helen Lake. The wind was nuuuking in this picture:


The skin track and boot tracks lasted about 5 minutes before they disappeared:


I used my split crampons up higher although you didn't really need them. It was perfect snow for them though. You couldn't notice any drag but you could feel the extra bite to make the skin super enjoyable:


Middle Trinity chute. The skiers left one looked perfect too. The right one (the one that's dropped the most) had lots of exposed chicken heads. Perfect fast windbuffed all the way to just above Helen Lake. I made the fastest turns I've ever made on Shasta!


Getting ready in the cold wind:


Ken coming into the main gut of the chute. (he only dropped with his axe cuz he forgot to put it away and you had to scootch over some steep frozen chickenheads to get in anyway) He was on my Winterstick ST I've neglected to ride this year. He loved it!

Nice job Brooks - way to get it. Looks really fun.

Yesterday, Sunday June 24, I capped off a very mediocre season with the best run of the season with a high-speed non-stop 3,000' vert run in mid-winter hero-smooth wind-buffed pow from the top of Left of Heart. Drove with 2 non-skiing buddies up to Shasta City Friday afternoon. Poured rain in town all night, and snowed above 7,500' with 6"+ above 10,000'. Forecast for Saturday was for intermittent light snow showers and high winds and for Sunday was for sun and high winds (90mph+ above 12,000’). It was actually partly sunny when we left Bunny Flat at 9am Saturday. Was able to start skinning about 5 minutes past Horse Camp. Arrived at Lake Helen at noon hoping to make camp then ski in the afternoon, but by 1pm it was full-on white-out that was unrelenting into the night, so we spent the afternoon building bigger snow walls around the tent site and trying to stay warm. It was amazing how many unprepared groups there were trudging into Lake Helen all afternoon -- no less than a half dozen people came over to ask to borrow my shovel. Wind and occasional bursts of graupel battered the tent all night. It was still white-out when we peeked outside at 3:30am. Finally at 4:30am there was commotion outside and groups were starting up the hill under blue skies. I started skinning at 6ish and was able to skin to within 50’ vert from top of Left of Heart. It was amazing how only a couple hundred yards away from a hundred people climbing up one route like ants in a line I was all alone skinning a beautiful route with no one else. Lower down before I veered off toward Left of Heart I think I got the evil eye from some guides leading their clients up the normal route on foot as I skinned past. I put on crampons and front-pointed up over the lip and into seriously nuking winds. I started trudging up Misery Hill a couple hundred feet, then decided to turn around due to winds and a need to get back to rendezvous with my partners at base camp. The turns were ear-to-ear grin-inducing. Usually in the backcountry I milk my turns and stop every so often to savor it. I just couldn’t stop or even slow down until I got to Lake Helen. Below Lake Helen snow was nice and smooth until it ran out. Fun times. Too bad there was not a single other skier around to share.