Today, Saturday, May 23, the conditions on the Hotlum Wintum were even better for the descent than 4 days ago. There was little to no wind and more consistent corn snow. The road is blocked by snow at about 6100 ft elevation and a bit over 5 miles from the Brewer Creek TH (there is consitent snow for skinning or booting from around 6300 feet). Going solo this time, I needed some motivation to move through the lower sections without getting distracted, so I slept in until 4AM and hung out in the truck listening to the BBC on sat radio until I was good and properly late; then got off to a Cali-alpine start at 5AM. Now, sufficiently motivated to get moving or miss out on good conditions, I was at the standard Brewer Cr TH at 6AM and the summit at 10:30. While climbing up, it seemed like descending at 10AM would have given slighty better snow conditions, but 10:40 worked just fine. The upper section right off the summit was the best Ive seen in a few years.....smooth, near perfect corn snow, not many features on the surface to speak of. The convex rollover section around 12,500 ft was just getting mushy (at least for my skinny skis, Bill and John, who I met en route, had the right idea with wider skis and a snowboard) but after that, conditions were prime corn from 12,000 feet to 9500 on the Wintun Glacier. Massive snow field, full on white room effect.....white everywhere....no shadows or contours, no suncups, no wind effect....a massive white canvas of perfect corn to make any turn at any speed..... just a few, subtle runnels to inadvertently catch some air on while arcing some too-big GS turns. I also got caught up in some twilight zone-type snow suction effect around 9500 feet to 8500 feet (some structure on the bases would have helped) but then found a nice runnel/half-pipe with firmer snow to get me back to the car at noon.

6,100 ft to the summit in 5-1/2 hours is pretty good.

You must be in condition from all of those Eastern Sierra trips.....

Vince, Max, Susan and I skied the east side of Shasta on tuesday 5-26-09. We found really good snow conditions. I parked at 6000'. You could probably get another mile in a day or two, but the road to Brewer Creek has a lot of snow on it near the trailhead. It takes an extra hour to walk through the woods from the start of the switchbacks at 6000'. Bring a GPS if you have no vis. Otherwise, just line up the east chutes/rocky spine thing with Black Butte Peak on the way out.

We started from the car at 4:45 at 6000' and made it to the summit (14,152') in 8 hours. It's hard to go 1000' an hour on shasta down low and up high, but you can cruise the middle pretty fast. We tried to go at a comfortable pace, but there is no escaping the effects of the elevation, all-day sun, and lack of sleep. For anyone doing something like this for the first time, you'll find it to be a different feeling than expected perhaps. It's not a sweatfest like a mountain bike ride, but more of a mind-game to try and talk yourself into continuing and that you'll eventually get to the top. Just....keep......movingggg...

Max was most likely the only one on Shasta today with Volant Spatula, Trekkers, and Raichle alpine boots.




You know the snow is good and smooth up high when it's this smooth near treeline. Reports of West Face were super high grade smooth corn too.


Mt. McGloughlin to the north






Didn't need boot crampons or axe to climb today. You usually want at least boot crampons for the top 1/3 of Mt. Shasta, on any side.


We were in no rush today. Zero wind, and the snow didn't seem to be getting too soft. We spent an hour on top looking around.




Looking at Shastina's northeast side chutes from Mt. Shasta's summit.








We skied down around 1:30, and the snow had only softened a few inches. The slopes on shasta are so big, that you get a few thousand feet of consistent angle at a time.

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

Rode Diller Canyon from top of Shastina on Shasta Sunday. Great corn.
Diller on left

cool Brian. I haven't done that one yet. How is the drive in there?

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

Good stuff BG! Looks like you had some fine turns with a good crew. 8)

_________________
Chris

It's fairly simple. Just need 4wd and there's actually a mellow way around the worst stretch of road. I had a 7.5 minute topo of area and we drove right to the end w/out any problem. Much easier than the horror stories ppl make this approach out to be :lol:
ez 15 minute stroll from where we park to get established in the canyon too.

I think people that have done it either didn't have toyotas, were not good at navigating, or don't want people to go there cuz we made jokes all day about how easy the approach was compared to all the conflicting things others had told us.

Upper Wintun today, May31. Molly getting it done with 67 mm at 10AM.

I've appreciated the Shasta beta, figured I would round out the thread with a recent report from a couple other routes:

Allison, Susie, and I climbed the Hotlum Bolam for the first time last Monday, 5/25. Left Northgate about 4 am, walked a couple depressing miles to snowline, and then punched up into the moraines below the ridge. Gorgeous views of the Hotlum headwall and the lower Whitney glacier but that was about all the pleasantries I can report. The ridge was burned out above 13,000ft so we dropped the boards and summited without them. Watching people roll into the Hotlum Wintun from the summit was painful. We dropped at just past noon and the snow was crunchy and lightly "finned". Conditions got softer as we dropped but never very smooth. Slashed some blue ice which was fun, but all in all, the Hotlum Bolam kinda sucks for shredding. Stoked to have cured my northside curiosity but I won't be back anytime soon...
Allison

Susie

On Saturday, 5/30, Ondo and I climbed Avy Gulch and rode the West Face. Left at 4 am again and cruised up left of the Thumb. The sun cups are coming...

When we got above Misery Hill the build-up looked ominous but it broke up as we approached the summit.

Ondo was all smiles bagging Shasta's summit for the first time.

We lounged on the summit for a bit and dropped about 12:30. The rime off the summit was fairly soft.

West face had warmed up perfectly but the gully had seen a little traffic in recent days so the smooth panels were close to the rocks. Midway down we banged a left and found the best snow of the day in a big ol' bowl above Hidden Valley.

We rode out the flats to the notch below Hidden Valley and then down climbed a little rock to get back to snow. Traversing back to Horse Camp and then on to Bunny Flat wasn't too bad even on the boards. Patchy here and there, but we rode a majority of the way out. Get at it soon, but I'd still recommend the West Face. Easy climb and buttery descent.

Skiied the Hotlum Wintun route on June 7th in variable conditions...... felt more like a midwinter snowpack than springtime. The good news was the road is clear to 7,100 feet and there is a snow filled gulley that ends right at the current carpark. More good news was that the recent snows had filled the irregularities on the snow surface from 13,200 ft to 9,000 ft and filled in some of the exposed rocks on the ridge itself. Reality news is the new snow is now breakable crust and wind slab from 10,500 ft to around 13,200 with new wind formed irregularities above 13, 200 to the summit. We did find a few sections of wind buffed powder and some surprisingly good porn snow from 11, 500 to 9,000 ft. Legit suncups are forming from around 8, 500 ft and down.

Sunrise views above the clouds, taken with Devins phone


The new snow was above 9000 ft level. Below that, suncups were forming


It was a relatively windy day but we did find a somewhat wind protected perch to take in the views. Lassen was poking above the clouds somewhere out there.



Devin enjoying the porn snow around 10,500 ft

Last Sunday at Shasta was a zoo. Lots of people getting hit by ice. We saw at least 4 heli-vac's that day! I think it was mainly due to "interesting" late season weather, with rain up high and then cold, causing lots of rime ice to form on the rocks, then rapidly warming weather last weekend causing that ice to break off. Apparently there were as many incidents just that weekend as they have in the entire season some years:
http://www.mtshastanews.com/news/x14172 ... -Mt-Shasta

Sounds like some of the ice may still be around, but hopefully it will be back to normal soon.

This is the bowling alley. The bowling balls are the clear rime ice chunks breaking off the rocks above, and the pins are all those climbers.



We bailed into the sun and out of the mayhem, up to Casaval ridge. Lassen in the background.





Looking down at the camp at Lake Helen, with a heli-vac in progress.



We traversed from Casaval to the upper West Face route. It seemed good, but then as things warmed up we had some ice chunks come tumbling down over there as well. Not nearly as sketchy as the avy gulch route, but definitely not cool. Fortunatly we didn't have long to go before topping out.



We bailed on the summit since the winds weren't letting up, and hung out in front of this rock at the top of the Trinity Chutes for a couple hours. It was nice being in the sun and out of the wind. That rime ice is the same stuff that was falling down on climbers.



We dropped in around 1:30. Aside from the first few turns, the corn was awesome, and stayed surprisingly good almost all the way down.



Back in the parking lot, at 2:30 there were TWO choppers down at Bunny Flat. Pretty crazy. Healing vibes to al that were hurt (including a guide).

BTW, we initially had a plan to summit and drop off the east side to a car parked down near Brewer Creek. We were able to drive to about 6 miles from the TH. That was just below the first switchback, so theoretically you could ride down along the edge of Brewer in a straight line to that switchback, then pick up the road for a short distance to the car.

On Saturday, June 19, The Hotlum Wintun Route was in good shape (filled in, untextured to minimally textured snow) above 8500 feet. The colder air temps combined with some wind delayed the corn factory at the higher elevations but it was butter soft and smooth from 10,500 to 8,500 at 11AM. So good it was worth a second lap. Above 10,500 it was smooth and untextured snow up to the summit, just firm in the cold temps. Lots of ice pellets were blowing down from the top with some icy spindrift. Warming temps and low wind early this next week could be the ticket for corn summit to 8500.
Below 8500, the suncups were fun to ski until about 7500 then not so fun until the Brewer Creek half pipe which went to right near the car. Lots of moss, bark, dirt, branches, rodent carcasses, logs, pebbles, rocks, boulders in the Brewer Creek halfpipe, but no suncups and the obstacle course made the time fly by. The snow in the road to Brewer TH started at 5700 ft at the first big switchback jimw mentioned.

Hey Tucker, does the road to Brewer Creek require a high clearance vehicle in the current conditions? I've never been to that trailhead before and was thinking of going there in a couple of weeks.

Thanks!

taraboshi,
The Brewer Creek road is currently easily passable to the snow line with any vehicle imaginable (we saw a 70's era lowrider-mini RV parked there yesterday). Just a red dirt gravel road, ease around one snow drift (easy to do) then it ends at 5,700 ft where the deep snow starts and the skiing begins.
In a few weeks, Id guess the lower snow will have melted out, the logs across the road will be cut away, and the road will be driveable quite a bit farther up than 5700 ft. It would likely still be passable then higher up with a low clearance vehicle and you just need to be cautious driving around and through the shallow snow banks.
Just for a reference, when the snow is completely melted out and the road goes through all the way to the Brewer Cr TH, you can drive it all the way with a low clearance vehicle no problem (mini van etc).
The good news and real beta is you can make it up there in any vehicle imaginable anytime. Just go to where the snow starts then park your ride, start skinning or hiking up the road for 15-30 minutes and youll end up right where any high clearance 4WD vehicle with a motivated driver would end up (other than a cat or snowmobile). Even better, just park, look up and find the summit and beeline right to it!
Bgnight, the Brewer Creek is to the left of the first switchback covered in snow. There are well marked signs to Brewer TH and easy to see if your driving a reasonable speed and not reenacting a segment of the Paris Dakkar ralley race making it to the snowline. So yeah, park at the snowline (first swithback), hike left going South for 100 ft to Brewer Creek and follow it up. Mark it with a monument where you enter with any of wide selection of detrius youll find in the Brewer Cr. Id recommend some system to mark your cars location as all those trees and gulleys start to look the same on the descent. The snow should be smooth, money corn this next week. Gets some pics and vid!

Hey Tucker, another question.
Having never been up that road, is it ez to not get lost as far as staying on the main road to the trailhead? And is brewer creek to the left of the switchbacks going up toward the mountain? Basically, should you just park you car at the highest switchback closest to the creek and take the creek up and mark where you came in? (or perhaps mark the "takeout" point in the creek the night before and just beeline it on the up in the morning?) I want to go down this week and wing it w/out GPS. I'm gonna bring topos, but always here horror stories of ppl getting lost.

I heard horror stories about Diller canyon though and that's about the easiest, most straight forward approach there is.

edit: Thanks for the info Tucker! Unfortunately most my video turns out overexposed on shasta due to lack of features and intense sunlight :(

Oh yeah, pics from last week:




rughty climbing up the firm steeps to stay out of the bowling alley:


Fullers2oh, Jimw, and PJ topping out on west face. I think Dave is sitting there thinking :"hey, I think thats WEEEEEED"


Dave and Ken:


We didn't climb up together, but we managed to end up at the same perch trying to stay out of the wind:


Ken exiting the Trinity chutes. Lots of ice coming off and trying to find climbers to hit:




Back at Bunny Flat looking back:


Diller canyon was the next day w/ PJunkie, rughty (Ken), fullers2oh, and me:


Darren:




PJ topping out:


Dave topping out:


We basically chinese downhilled it. Only riding pics taken:
Ken riding the perfect toeside wave:




Slayed!:

nice guys! I climbed hotlum bolum to the summit on friday, skinning about 10 minutes from the North Gate Trailhead. No suncups at all, and winds died down completely in the afternoon.

We skied down the Bolum Glacier which was rock hard and easy to navigate. It would have been softer to ski down the way we came possibly with a little more east and less west exposure. Gnarly snow contions above 13k on the north side of shasta, I've gone a few times, and you ain't skiin' *** up there. But it's so hard to walk back down when you have skis. Volcanos just get that water ice fin stuff in places I guess. Anyway, below 13k it's ice free.

I'll put some pics up on thursday when I'm back in town. Snow coverage is great everywhere, I'll put up some pics from the highway all around shasta.

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

Yes, Brewer creek is on the climbers left of the switchbacks. There are 2 switchbacks that come close to the fall line of the drainage. One is pretty far down, near where the snow line is currently. The other one is almost at the TH and you probably can't drive to it yet. In between, the road traverses away from the fall line, and it's probably not worth driving up past the first switchback because then you'd have to traverse on the way out. Right now I'd guess you'd probably still be able to straightline it down Brewer creek most of the way to the first switchback. I hear the confusion comes in when folks miss the drainage, or are in the drainage when they pass the switchback and keep going (but that's not too likely now since the snow will probably run out). It all looks the same from up above and it's easy to end up in a different drainage than you thought.

Diller definitely *can* suck; good for you that you got the correct approach, but if you keep saying how easy it is Shasta and the Lemurians are gonna bitch-slap you one of these days... :)

Oh, one other thing about the comment that one can drive up the road to Brewer to snowline any time. The only problem with this is treefall. When we drove up there the weekend before last, there were several trees across the road that looked freshly cut out, and these were MILES before we got to the snowline. So if you're heading up there in the early spring I wouldn't necessarily expect to get to snowline. Wait for the local 4wd crew to go in there and cut the downed trees out, or bring a chainsaw! :)

Slayed! Perfect corn from summit and no tracks. Was worried as the forecast called for some north winds, but it was absolutely breathless on the climb up.
Thanks for the idea Tucker! :)
Started walking at 4:15. Summit by 11:30. Dropped about noon just before a bank of clouds moved in and ruined the perfect day. Suncups below 9k foot mark. Weird how it goes from huge suncups to smoothness almost instantly.
Soooo, this Hotlum Wintun from the first switchback is loooooong (5800 ft). Definitely the most vert I've done in a day. Brewer creek is interesting up and down too :lol:

Camera settings were messed up so not many pics


Glad to finally hit treeline. I was getting a bit worried I was running late:


Right down the gut from the summit then traversed to the Hot-Wit ridge. Was tempting to keep going down the Wintun side as it was super good,...but it all was:


summit:




Took my helmet cam. I might make a small vid w/ some of the brewer creek halfpipe shenanigans :D

Bignight
I have been reading your trip reports all year. You always have great photos and helmet cam. What type of helmet cam do you have. Can you give me some beta on where you started hiking from ( right at the first switch back? How long until you came out of the trees? How easy was it to find your line back to the car. I have only done brewer creek from the trail head. Again great trip reports all year. I used to be a solo guy until i had kids now my wife feels better when i have a partner. There is something about being alone out there that i just loved

GoPro HD Hero

I just followed Tucker's beta ^^ (didn't see your beta till yesterday Jim, but ty)
The Brewer cr road dead ends right now at a large snowbank w/ a downed green tree on it just before the first switchback. I walked from the switchback about 100yds to the south and found Brewer creek which is actually a dry creek bed (there's a spur road off the switchback that takes you right to it). Just start walking up that drainage and eventually it sorta branches off and flattens out. This is only tricky part. Just keep following the shallow drainages to the NW and eventually it turns back into a deep gorge again and this takes you right to hotlum wintun. It's kinda weird how it disappears (maybe I didn't follow it correctly), but it's not too hard to find again.
I saw Tucker's out track on the upper part of gorge, but stuff is melting so fast lower I didn't see any sign of people.

As far as finding where to get out on way back it's pretty ez. The snow basically ends in the gorge where you start walking and you can just mark it mentally somehow too.

nice one Brian, perfect east side conditions.

This post sure is getting long. It's pretty cool too though. I hope internet connections get faster.

Last Friday 6-18 I skied from the summit using the North Gate Trailhead. We climbed Hotlum Bolum from the trailhead, skinning after about 10 minutes of walking. We skied back to that point easily as well. leaving at 5:30 we got to the top around 1:30, taking our time as we could tell the snow was barely going to soften. Okay, not that we were gonna go much faster....6900' to over 14000'

Shasta had been pummled by high winds for days. Noaa called for no winds. USFS said 30mph up high. I ignored USFS, and Noaa pulled through for us. No wind.




Greg and I went up the black line, skinning to 12k along the Hotlum Bolum Ridge. It's a vague ridge, but it's visably there to stay off the glacier if you want to. There is one spot where you traverse left into the chute above the Hotlum Glacier, where there are probably some crevasses. The snowpack was frozen really solid and smooth, in fact so much that we felt comfortable skiing right down the Bolum Glacier. I assume the normal return Hotlum Bolum ski descent is along the route you climb. Or at least that's what I've done in the past.


First full view, we are psyched!




I only saw a few tracks in places, and no ski tracks. Figures, with the recent weather. On the way out we passed big group of at least 10 skiers setting up camp at treeline. I don't think the weather held for them though.


We slept a whole 2 hours before getting up. My usual program unfortunately, leaving after work. Going to the north side is another hour or two compared to hitting Bunny Flat. So we took a nap for 45 minutes at the start of the HB ridge. The snow was rock hard, and it was only 10:30 or so. This definately paid off, I felt a lot better afterwards.


Clouds moved in, but I felt pretty sure they weren't enveloping the mountain. They weren't floor to ceiling, but really just within about 1000' looking around everywhere. And kind of just side-swiping the mountain. I felt I could get back down in thick clouds at the time. Looking back, that would have really sucked, and been nearly impossible in a whiteout. It's summer already though. Whiteout? Nahhhh
We are ski cramponing for our life here, and started using them as soon as the slope angle tilted to 25 degrees or so. Bulletproof snow. There was no wind however, it had to soften at some point. It's late June!


After skinning the tiny glacier bit this route involves, which is the high east corner of it, we put on the ol camp ultralight boot crampons and walked up the chute climbers' left of the Hotlum Bolum Ridge. I hadn't noticed until descending that there is a twin parallel chute on the West side of the ridge that is longer, and wider.


Coming out of the chute to a flat bench, at about 13k. Here I went over left a little to check out the more dramatic part of the Bolum Glacier, beneath the triangle shaped rock headwall that helps define the north side of Mt. Shasta for me.


Just left of our HB route is a cool part of the Hotlum Glacier up high, below the rock headwall.


This shot is from 500' below the previous one. I think last time I went up the ridge climbing class 2-3 rock. Shasta must have had less snow at that time, it felt pretty obvious in this climb to follow snow around the corner. So I'm hopefully accurate calling the actual HB ridge is the rock just left of my black line here.


Whitney Glacier and Shastina's east facing chutes in the background.


There was enough snow to boot up the steep chutes on the west side of HB, and in fact we skied from the summit. Or at least as close as you do on the east side. Although rock hard and largely covered in small water-ice fins, we felt we climbed a way through that we could ski back down on descent "frozen granular". Nope. We could barely hold an edge, and got worked just like the last time I tried to ski the top 1300' with Roger in 2005.

On a side note, I skied down from the summit a chute over, directly above the Hotlum Headwall. I knew I would be traversing out of it soon, but found perfect windblown smooth winter snow. And it was gettting steeper and quite awsome. I made about 15 turns more than I should have, and came to my senses. The snow told me to go back actually, as it got icy. At that point I realized I missed my exit left. I thought about changing back to boot crampons, but felt it was safer to side-step back up on the chalky winter snow. Great. Sidestep back up 300' at 13,500' when I'm over-dressed for a descent. I felt it was totally worth it though. Pretty exciting.


Looking down at the East side ski descent above Brewer Creek Trailhead. We were up there from about 1:30 to 2pm and didn't see anyone. I thought there would be a zoo of tracks. Maybe there is now.


There are a few bumps on the summit. We are looking back north to where we need to go here, sitting on the actual summit. It looks higher, but it's just a few feet lower over there.


The black line is our climb. I skied down directly beneath the top and stopped at the choke and shade line. I had to sidestep back up and cross over to the Bolum Ridge to join Greg on the NW chutes above the Bolum Glacier. I feel like all my Shasta pictures fail to show the steepness of the top 2500'. On all routes, it gets pretty serious when the snow is firm. Add the ice I believe to be common on the north side, and it's no wonder people rarely ski over here. The lower half of the mountain is fantastic however, way less tracked and suncupped. Probably the smoothest snow you're going to find in California late in the season.




I'm sure I've lost you all by now with this post. If you're still reading, this is about 13k where we were so frustrated with the icy snow, we just wanted to keep going down. We probably would have found soft snow had we re-entered the north chute we climbed. It had a little east exposure in it and certainly no surface ice. Instead, the Bolum glacier just looked so skiable, we couldn't resist. I knew the steep roll-over in the middle was broken up in some way, so we skied above and around it. I've never seen the glacier in the summer, and didn't really know if there were crevasses up there. The snow was so hard though, we just avoided any bumps or dips. Greg is the little dot well below me to the left here on the bolum Glacier.




lower on the Bolum the snow started to get good.



Some climbers coming up at 3pm at around 11k. The last two times I skied down this runway on a straight B-line for the car. This time we skied left into the next gully, also the way we came up in the morning. Both are really fun. You get flying with all that low-angle white. No rocks or trees, and perfectly smooth. Out of view the slope steepens for another 1000' to treeline. If you just ski toured up to this mid-mountain spot, you would be psyched. There is at least 4000' of fun skiing below us, and we've just descended what seems like a huge mountain already.


So now are super psyched at about 3pm. We had a lonely, no wind summit day, skied down over super deep snow, saw cracks, and started to get the soft perfect 2" deep corn just beneath that slope wide crack on the Bolum Glacier. None of these website pictures in any Shasta trip report can really portray just how long of a run this is. I stop and grab a few pictures every 1000'. Or is it....I take a break every 1000' and might as well snap some pictures while I give my legs a minute to rest.






It looks dry here, but the snow was pretty solid to the trailhead. We skied easily to within a 10 minutes walk of the car.


USFS is still calling the snowpack 140% of normal. Here's a view of the north side from the highway. The Whitney Glacier is in the middle. Shastina was plastered well on both sides, looking like it normally does in early May.


Looking at Diller Canyon on the west side of Shastina. I still haven't done this one yet. Looks covered enough where it needs to be right now.


The west face, zoomed in from the highway. This looked really well covered.


Mt. Lassen looked good. It's been awhile for me.

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

Great trip and pics Mike. I plan to go to Brewer creek with a friend July 5th
Your picture of Lassen indicates that we might want to stop there as well
Christian

Little video of my Hot-tuna day:
http://vimeo.com/12829047

you're not the Christian I met coming out of Split w/ Barnes are ya?

I skied the east side from the summit with Roger and Chris Cyzs on Monday June 28th. There was at least as much snow as when I skied this route last year on May 26th. We parked just before the first switchback as usual. I don't think the Brewer Creek Trailhead will be snow free until mid July.

I took this shot on the way home from hwy 89 near McCloud. The line on the right is the popular Hotlum - Wintun route we went up. The line on the left is the approximate Clear Creek Route.


Roger and Chris skied down the center from the top. I traversed over all the way skier's left and found a fantastic, curvey, North facing couloir above the Hotlum Glacier. This line had an easy but important traverse back around to the east side of the mountain, and had some exposure. I don't think it got steeper than 40, but you wouldn't be happy if it were icy in there.


I took this shot afterwards, which shows Mt. Shasta's east side from about 8000' to the summit at 14,162'.


We started walking at 4am. USFS report said the freeze line was 11,000'! It was very warm that evening, Sac temps were 95. From our experience, this side of the mountain rarely gets too soft, and we were right. The snow was rock hard at 8000', and perfect 1" corn up high during our 1pm descent. We spent 7 hours getting to the top, which I was happy with considering where we started from. Plus as usual, we didn't sleeep much.


For the first time, we stumbled across the actual Brewer Creek Drainage. We found a pleasant skin on it's north facing banks, winding right up to the ball field. I think I"ll repeat this from now on, hopefully figuring out the best way to get over there from the early season parking area.


I love this shot. The moon was near full, and very big in the am. This is about 6am at treeline. Lots of daylight right now. Light winds, dying down to nothing in the middle of the day. We reached the summit around 11:30.


my black line shows the little couloir I skied, just beside the Hotlum Headwall. I could see most of the Hotlum Glacier below me, and found very smooth, crunchy snow trying to be corn between 13k and 14k. Then it got perfect as soon as I popped back over to the east side, as is mandatory.


Suncups were out in full force down low below 9000'. Not bad, I've found terrible suncups up to 11,000' most of the time over here. You're not making turns below 9k due to the low angle anyway.









Mt. McGloughlin to the north.


I like to skin a little extra to the right around 11,500' and get a view of the Hotlum Glacier. This detour ensures no switchbacks as you get into moderately steep slopes. Just one track to this point, snap a picture, and flip it the other way to reach "the crossover".




Chris and Roger above me at about 13k




I like the last entry in the summit register from the previous day


on top


The red P is approximately where we parked. Once again I used my simple return route through the forest trick; which is to just aim for the peak in the distance. This always puts me out on the trailhead road, about a mile uphill from the car. I've tried leaving cairns, following a lame GPS watch....it's easy to just walk towards the top of the butte to the east and relax.




Here's where I seperated from Roger and Chris, near the top. they had perfect corn right off the summit, with only a few tracks to ski around. I wanted NO tracks today, and something new. The angle was only about 30 degrees going into my NE chute, and it would have been easy to go back up. I could tell it went through however after a few hundred feet of skiing into it. I'd looked at it in the morning pretty thouroughly too.


I took these shots along the way down above 13k somewhere. The shot on the right is looking uphill. Perfect corn.


Looking at the Hotlum Glacier. You can see the Hotlum Bolum Ridge, as the low angle skyline. I stood by the red X last week when I skied the Bolum Glacier with Greg. One day I'll drop in and ski the Hotlum Glacier from that point.


perfect smooth corn snow down to about 10k. Below that it was typical summer snow - a little bumpy, sticky, and dirty, but not bad with fat skis. Wax was essential.












With such a successful day, we didn't bother trying to force out turns down low.

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

Looks pretty sweet Mike. Nice work.

Nice one Mike!

I always wondered if there was a way to get into that chute that comes right down the middle of the ridge in the shot below from the top. From the pic, it looks like it would require a little downclimbing to get in, but it might be fun. From what I recall looking up at it from the point where you traverse across to the upper Wintun on the climb, it looks nice and wide/steep at the bottom. You'd just have to make sure you stopped before hitting all the rocks at that traverse! :)

Are these your tracks Mike?

Was up there a week ago and got some climbing in.
http://www.vholdr.com/video/shasta-north-gate-chutes

Then went up again last Wed (July 7) and got some more turns.
http://www.vholdr.com/node/96971

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

not my tracks, I went right and back onto the east side at about the cloud line in your pic. I wanted to go that way though, that skier people probably parked at north gate.

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

WE GOT FACE SHOTS THE WHOLE WAY UP!!!

Rughty and I met up w/ jibmaster at the Brewer Cr trailhead Tuesday night to tour up hotlum-wintun to find snow for the first turns of the season.

Car camping at trailhead:


On our way!:








As soon as we got outta tree line the winds picked up:








This winds had their way with the snow the last few days. We stopped at 10,800 ft just below the steeper part of the hot-tuna snowfield. We actually found the best turns just below treeline. Easy skinning/riding to and from the cars. Not a bad tour to start the season

Nice meeting and riding with you jibmaster!




http://vimeo.com/16267909

Good to jib with guys!
Drove up Tuesday evening

http://www.vimeo.com/16305455

and made it to the TH in about 6 inches of fresh.
The snow was squeaky dry.

Jibbing up through the woods was peaceful.








But above treeline, the winds started.
Got video of the top of our run.
http://www.vimeo.com/16286029

Struggling with the snow conditions on my Volkl Norbert Joos.
:roll:

And got some smoother turns down in the woods.
http://www.vimeo.com/16291707

The snow up top was Hullacious, but we had a Hullova time!

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

Drove up Tue. Got there just in time for sunset.
Stopped at Bunny Flat to snap a few shots.








Drove on up to The Old Ski Bowl. They had the road plowed to 7500'.
Just below the upper parking lot.













Got rocked, literally, to sleep in the Jeep by STRONG winds
driving the high pressure.
Headed up on Wednesday morning.











Green Butte






Green Butte Ridge





Avy Gulch - just over the ridge.


Helen Lake




Sargents Ridge


Trinity Chutes/Red Banks



It's time to ski!
http://www.vimeo.com/16482340

Don't forget to take your skins off...
:roll:

http://www.vimeo.com/16483150

It was 50 degrees at the Jeep this morning.
The snow was not holding for long.
It started out with super smooth corn and got a little punchy
down lower, but it was SWEET!

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

Been on the road the month of January.
Tuesday, January 18th I drove from Hull to Shasta.
Not enough snow in the Coast Range yet.

This should be enough snow!


It was super windy.
:shock:
http://www.vimeo.com/19379846
Over 100 mph winds just above. The parking lot
was getting backdrafts and blasts that would
knock you over.

I kicked back and enjoyed the views.


I slept in the Jeep getting rocked to sleep by the winds.

__________________
Day 1 Wed.

Woke up and set out up Green Butte Ridge.


The snow was pretty firm.
http://www.vimeo.com/19377629

Got back to the Jeep and went into town.
Hung out at the laundry and bought some goodies
at the Berryvale Market.

Soon I was back up at Bunny Flat
and prepared to watch the sunset light up the mountain.




















___________________
DAY 2 Thursday

Met Mark in the parking lot. We went up Green Butte
And dropped into Powder Bowl.
http://www.vimeo.com/19375211

Good jibbin' with you Mark!

We stayed right and hooked up with the ridge
between Powder and Sun Bowls.
Mark hiked up for a run from the top of Sun Bowl.


He got what he deserved.
http://www.vimeo.com/19172569

Powder Bowl


More alpenglow for the evening.


___________________
Day 3 Friday

Headed up Avalanche Gulch searching for more corn.


The West Face rises above Casaval Ridge.




Made it up to 50/50.
The snow wasn't softening much above that.


http://www.vimeo.com/19150394

When I got back to the parking lot,
snowblasta's car was there.
He showed up a bit later from skiing
and promptly fell asleep.


_______________
Day 4 Saturday

We took off up Avalanche Gulch.
It was too icy to make it quite to the top of 50/50.
Ground blizzard winds were racing down the slope.
It was time to ski.

http://www.vimeo.com/19148044

The cold and wind made for firm turns up high,
Down in the gully, the snow wasn't mank this time.
Fast and groovy.

http://www.vimeo.com/19142630

Spent one more night at Bunny Flat sleeping in the Jeep.
Drove home Sunday.

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

One more video. Snowblasta's video finally got uploaded.
Not everyone likes the POV. It's a little more interesting when there are two jibbers with helmet cams.


http://www.vimeo.com/19575073

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