SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR MOST RECENT TALK. TAKES AWHILE TO LOAD THIS LONG THREAD, BUT WORTH IT. There are other many Mt. Shasta trip reports on our website messageboard as well.

Skied the south side from Bunny Flats on 6/4 and 6/5. High winds stopped us below Red Banks on Tuesday, but wed was perfect to ski from the summit. Snow Coverage is excellent, and you can ski/skin within a 5 minute walk from the Bunny Flat parking area. Snow is amazingly smooth above 10,000, and not bad above 8,000...due to a few inches of snowfall last week. Yesterday we did the skiers left Trinity Chute. All these chutes above Helen Lake are PERFECT right now(as is the whole mountain). The Chutes are about 40 degrees, smooth, wide enough to turn comfortably in, and not too tough to get into.

Peering down the east side, we drooled over perfect corn right from the summit. Brewer Creek Trailhead is snowed in by a few miles, but this is usually my favorite time to go. Since the road switchbacks, you walk about half of the measured miles left to the trailhead. A friend skied the route last week and said it was all-time.

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

Skied out of Brewer Creek on 6/17. Sun cups are pretty bad up to 10,500. Excellent smooth skiing reported from summit on day before, but we only got to ski from 12,500. The top 2000 got more socked in with clouds as the day went on, and snow didn't soften above that. I'd say only go do this route if you think the weather might let you get to the top. Skiing stinks below 11,000 right now. There's snow within a 10 minute walk of the trailhead.

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

Spend 4days on shasta sat--tuesday. Mountain was in awsome shape down low, but
above 11,500 cold temps and high winds have kept it from thawing.
Skiied the chutes off casaval (icy at top, good corn in gulch), giddy giddy gulch,
powder bowl, and from about 11,600 on the casaval side of the gulch. Everything
down low was perfect corn between 11am--2pm. It was hitting earlier and earlier each day as the temps started rising as the week went on.

above that it's still wind sculpted yuck, but some folks did ski it.
The west face still needs more sun. Didn't see any tracks up high. many tracks
off of cascade gulch, and the south side of shastina still has great snow.
no water at horse camp.

They have tons of snow. We'll be skiing to the car for a while up there; horse camp
is still submerged, only the chimney is poking out. you could actually ski over it.
I probed above the parking lot and couldn't hit bottom.. probably 10--13 ft of snow at bunny flat still...

Shasta is....Off the Hook! Go get some of that creamy vanilla smoothness before it starts cupping up. Actually, I think it's going to be stellar for quite a while this year. There should be great turns well into July, and ample August opportunities for the ambitious ones. But right now there's tons of really good quality snow from top to bottom. Everything on the south and west side are looking great - West Face, Avalanche Gulch, Trinities, etc. North Gate just opened and it sounds like Brewer is still a ways out. Epic!

I skied the south side of Shastina on Saturday via Hidden Valley.















I ran into Chris of Shasta Mountain Guides on top of Shastina. He was enjoying his job with a couple of skiers on all the sweet slopes above Hidden Valley. Look him up if you want a Shasta guru to show you all the best lines.

agree that shasta is pretty damn good right now. skied from our base camp up at Lake Helen down avy gulch all the way to the car sunday. our summit attempt was cut short due to some insane wind.

dude, don't you have like 7 kids?! where the F do you find the time???? :)

Finally wrote up a trip report from a trip up to Shasta on 4th of July weekend. Amazing conditions.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43247.jpg" border=0>

The full TR is here:

http://www.splitboard.net/talk/viewtopic.php?t=840

The middle of July and Mount Shasta continues to deliver. We skied Hotlum-Wintun ridge on 7/17/05 and found great conditions from about 13,000' to 9,000' - smooth corn on a firm base around 1:00 PM despite the warm temperatures.

Sunrise on Shasta.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43688.jpg" border=0>

Lower Wintun glacier.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43689.jpg" border=0>

Summit with top of Misery Hill and Whitney glacier.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43690.jpg" border=0>

Smooth snow to skier's right of Hotlum glacier.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43693.jpg" border=0>

Harvesting with Hotlum in background.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43691.jpg" border=0>

A last look.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic43692.jpg" border=0>

incredible. no suncups?

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

We did not run into any significant suncups until the bottom of the moraine at around 9000'. Even then the 'cups were soft and managable. Everything above that was surprisingly smooth and firm even early afternoon with warm temps. The top 1,000' of the Wintun glacier to the summit was very soft but conditions were perfect after traversing back across the ridge toward the Hotlum.

Still snow at BF. Only 9 people on the mtn. on Monday (4/16/07). Nobody there on Tuesday as the storm was coming in.

Mostly smooth conditions in avi gulch. Climbers route to right of red banks is going quicky. Under red banks, trinity and off casaval is good still. HV looked good. Shastina is still holding.

Lots of rock patches, some wind ripples and some dirty snow.

Rode from about 12,500 off Casaval down to Helen, then out. Sticky down low.

[img][img]http://puffnattie.smugmug.com/photos/144904467-L.jpg[/img][/img]

Here's the TR



Day 3-Shasta. Bunny flat and not a soul around.

Eco skinning up avalanche gulch

Eco looks back while PJ leads the way to Casaval ridge


now skinners start your engines. ouuu nice mojo


(oops, last 2 pics out of order)
Stoney rocks w/redbanks in the distance

Ecobutt :wink:

Eco and PN booting

PN reaches our destination

Ecosilhoette

Here we gooooooo. PJ -comin' atcha live


Eco's turn

PN


Looking back up

Windlip fun-PJ waves hello

Eco


A great weekend w/Eco. by the way, I think eco has a side job we weren't aware of...
Split-n-dales

The latest in backcountry fashion :thatrocks:

Looks like you scored PW / PJ! Shasta looks like it's only getting better right now too.

Some pics from today 5/10/07, for the folks going up this weekend. Still a lot of great skiing to be had in Shasta.
- Bunny: pretty much still skiing to the parking lot. Should be this weekend as well, but probably not the next. Even after you turn the corner and start skinning through the trees, it's kinda thin. With no refresh, I'd guess you'd be walking most of the way to horse camp in 3 weeks.
- Broadway, Sun/poweder bowl pretty much look done. Giddy Giddy/anaconda looked ok from what I could see.
- Good coverage in the gulch for skiing above horse camp. Trinities are fantastic.
- West face looked great. Not sure if the lower drainage traverse still goes or you should boot up and catch anaconda/giddy giddy.
- South side (k chutes/Sargents still looked good). Shastarama gully still looks awesome. Not sure how much of the road is melted though. Might be some walking after you're done with ski bowl.
- Clear creek looked likes it's getting pretty thin(see pic below from Mcloud), prolly great this weekend. Didn't drive out to brewer.
- water's running at horse camp. There's a whole team of folks tugging sleds to horsecamp for some party. One guy claimed he was pulling a keg.

First few taken after skiing today.


South side:

Clear Creek:



morning shots:



Hail pellets at 12,000. Driving up last night I saw tons of lighning. They got a lot of rain. All the snow below 12,000 got soaked, breaking the bonds of the snow, making it sugar down to 6-12 inches. Luckily at 12k or so I got back to nice solid snow. Below that it was water skiing down and tons of natural wet slides off of casaval. I think the trinities were the only safe thing to ski off of casaval today(solid above 12k). even at 9am the top layer was ready to go below that level.


stuff off of casaval next to trinities




Skiing the chute from the top was all ice-- still hadn't softened until you get to where I took this pic on the way up. Quite scary on the upper part. on the left of this picture the easier side of the chute still hadn't gone the cycle. Not really powder, but powder like. really fun skiing to the bottom of the chute.



Top of the west face. Coverage looks great. The shastina chute still goes.






Summit from the top of the trinities ~13k.


top of the trinities. Can't figure out why it hadn't softened yet. I overslept in the car and didn't get up there to ski it until 2:30pm.

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Nice pictures, Towelie :D Shasta is produing some nice conditions now.
Sierra Souljah, Molly, Koichi, and I climbed and skiied the Hotlum Wintum on Sunday, May 13 (Happy Mothers Day)! The road to Brewer Creek TH was closed about 4.5 miles from the trailhead but with some direct GPS measurements with did a direct descent at 2.2 miles from TH to car (with some bush wacking). The approach to the trailhead did not seem to be much of issue at all and we had the entire route (and seemingly that side of Shasta) to ourselves. We started hiking at 5600 ft and were at the summit at 11:00 or so. Molly and I booted the whole thing and Sierra Souljah and Koichi used skins and even some ski crampons for a section. The ski conditions were prime time with skiable, yet variable snow from near the summit to good corn from 12500 to 10500 and then excellent corn from to the trailhead and most of the way to the car. We didnt notice any appreciable suncups where we skiied, it was mainly a smooth surface of corn snow with easily avoidable wind affected snow formations here and there. The hero making conditions were just what Molly and I needed after not being on skis for 2 months and spending most of my time climbing at Indian Creek, Donner, and Yosemite. Im thinking rock climbing is good cross training for backcountry skiing. And vice versus. Anyway, the near 8500 feet of vertical descent is prime now for good corn skiing!

Skied Shasta today too via avy gulch. The upper 1000' was icy on the South side. We took skiers Right of Red Bluffs into the gulch and the snow was perfect. What a run, 2000' constant pitch, wide open and smooth. Im no expert on Shasta but I was say its prime for the picking. What a great day!!

Skied the East Side of Shasta yesterday, 5/17. We only got to the flat part before the 4 miles of switchbacks to Brewer Creek Trailhead. We walked about 45 minutes in the woods to snow. Going early before the trailhead melts out ensures minimal suncups and people. Plus Daryn and I had the whole east side of Shasta to ourselves all day!

With nearly 8000' of vert ahead of us and the added challenge of finding our car, we should have left earlier. We didn't get soft snow all day on the upper half of the mountain anyway, so spending all day out there didn't matter. We found perfect corn snow on the lower half in the late afternoon, and minimal suncup issues.


I need a GPS already. We tried to leave natural markers in the woods, but this never really works. Every year I find the car fairly easily linng up Shasta's east ridge with a small peak behind us. You can always find the car and epic a little, but one time I'd like to just follow an arrow. Of course you can't depend on a GPS completely.


Reeling in the mountain takes all day, and at times it seems like you aren't getting anywhere. Then the altitude gets you, and you crawl forward near the top.


Really nice snow eh? The normal way to climb the east side of shasta is to skirt the right side of that line of dirt and rock, in the center of the pick. At about 12k, it gets steep beneath a chute and some cliffs. You traverse left onto wide, steep slopes all the way to the top. Expect at least 35 degree terrain for hours, which is often rock hard. I've skied this route about 10 times, and it was always hard just from the slightest wind.




When we got to the traverse spot, it didn't seem like the snow could soften. You never know of course, but this time we decided to go up anyway. Neither Daryn or I had gotten to the summit of Shasta in our last few attempts. I was a little nervous about him snowboarding it. Daryn doesn't log lots of ski area days. He's a great athlete however, and I couldn't believe how he carved on this stuff. I was the sketched out descender. Next time I ski on this side I'll bring heavier skis at 90 in the waist.

My advice is to have everything you need handy, like sunscreen, water, gu, and you crampons and axe out. Stopping to get gear is stressful if the snow is hard on 35 degree plus slopes.


The last 1000' of snow relaxes in angle a little to maybe 35.



Check out the 7000' of snow to ski right off the summit. I've heard this is the longest ski descent in north america. There are certainly some others like this in the Eastern Sierra and probably in other states, but Shasta is BIG. And Friendly.




Half way down you can ski right over to the edge of the Hotlum Glacier. For the Shasta newbies, there is no crevase danger on this east side ski route. It's called Hotlum Wintun because you travel between the two glaciers.


There are a few ways to ski off the east side of Mt. shasta, and still stay off the glaciers. The standard descent is out of view in this pic on the left. I didn't check out how easy it is to get into the chute on the left of this pic, which is dead center on the East Side. I've done the slope on the right, which heads straight into the Hotlum Glacier if you don't bang a hard right at the bottom. Looked icy, but that could have been the afternoon sun.






This is a picture from the town of Mt. Shasta. Looks like plenty of snow to ski everywhere. Even with below average snowpack. Go get it!


If you are searching for more shasta ski descent beta, there are many more posts on this forum. North gate, Shastina, etc....

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

I like those pictures, Mike. I think I can even make out our boot track (from last Sunday, May 13) at the photo of Daryn climbing the last 1000'!

ya, we started where you did and saw your boot tracks in a few places. Getting on top by 11am is impressive. Don't tell me what time you started. Okay, tell me.

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

We started up at 3AM (our plan was to start early and if needed, wait near the summit for the best snow conditions to form). We followed the road to the trailhead and then followed the right side of the ridge as in the described picture above. On the hike up, I was initally concerned about how firm and wind-affected the snow was on the right side of the ridge and how the snow there seemed to be resistent to the warming sun (my main concern was not being able to ski it well on the descent after so few days on snow this year). After we crossed over left near 12000 feet (towards the slightly more South facing snow), however, the snow was obviuosly going to be forming corn soon. Accordingly motivated with the prosepct of good snow and having discovered the better side to descend, we picked up the pace for the summit. With the low to no wind and sunny skies, descending the lookers left line around 11:30 turned out to give us some fantastic skiing conditions overall. We thought the lookers right line was a nice way to ascend with firm snow which was perfect for booting.

Tucker, Mike, Nice TR's. 8000ft days, you guys are animals!

Mike, No GPS?, dang man, if i'da known i could have come along and used my keen GPS skills to navigate you down to the car :roll: :lol:



Met up with Sherpa1 again and hit Shasta Friday 5/18. Simply fantastic, smooth corn from ~13,700 down to ~9,200. I think 5500ft of the best corn I've had this year.


Sure below that the cups are starting to form, and you're now hiking a bit before skinning, but when you put it into perspective, even in a couple of weeks when you're hiking 1000ft on the S. side and "only" getting 6000ft of skiing, this really isn't bad at all IMHO. I've hiked 1000ft in april for mt.Tom, and 2000ft in may for Birch mt... Shasta just spoils us with it's year round access and ski to the car coverage, so when we have to hike, it seems like a bummer, but really it's the opposite.

Westface is still great. The trinities & climbers left of the heart is still really smooth down to 10k. And brewer, man it's not even melted out to the trailhead yet. Go Git it!!!

Anyways, on with the report. One of those days when you arrive at the trailhead at 1am, and that som-bi*ch alarm clock just never waits long enough before wakin' me. And it's a bit discouraging when you're in the parking lot, just having put on your boots and noticing folks already climbing at base the heart, some 5000ft above you. But I know something that they don't; the breakfast of champions will show me the way:

yeah man, this is my latest kick. Goodbye chocolate mini-doughnuts, hello arby's. Ya gotta love processed meat; no refrigeration and it still tastes good cold. Hmm, roast beef(or raccoon, I don't know which). Dig deep in the pack of ed visteurs, and tell me you won't find one of these in his pack at everest base camp.

looking down the gulch from the red banks:


we skied the line direct falline from the summit plateau (pic from last week):


Sherpa1, near 13,600. Hmmm, smooth... I think it was 1-1:30pm (?)


It starts off really mellow, maybe 25-30 for 500ft, then steepens a tad to 35, maybe 40. Thumb rock in the background.


There is a rock band in the shape of the number "7". To the skiers right of this is the very active konwakiton glacier. To the left(what we're skiing) is a permanent snow field(not moving).



after you ski through the rock band, you have to cross the glacier.


The chutes off of Sargeants still go great. We skied this one last year. You'd have to climb up to thumb rock, then traverse on the snow ridge to get to it now. If you climb it directly from the gulch you'll dislodge lots o rocks on the folks below you. Not good.


gaining the flats of the mudcreek glacier:

20-30 min skin to shastarama:


Shastarama gulley still pretty good down to ~9200 or so:

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Nice Towelie. I need to ride that some day.

Nat and I camped in HV Fri and Sat. Rode the west face on Saturday. Still pretty smooth, just not silky. Got about half way up Misery and turned around with lot of others because of strong winds. I like to summit when it is nice out. :P

Had plans to go to Shastina on Sunday, but it was socked in and windy so we just slept in, packed up and got out.

A little tough to get into HV now, but still worth it. Take the high approach though. Also, if you want to get on the skis sooner than later from Bunny, stay in the bottom of avi gulch and you'll get on snow sooner. The ride down lower AG was pretty interesting, but gets you about 30 minute hike back to the car.

Road is basically melted out to the Brewer TH. Can almost skin from the car. Really good smooth conditions from summit down to about 10K on the Wintun face. Then it starts to get bumpy, but not bad. Temps were just right this weekend. The northeast finger near the Hotlum is solid ice.

I lost my camera at about 13,500. It is either sitting on a snow ledge next to a rock on the climbing route or it slid down into the Wintun glacier. If anyone sees a Olympus digital camera with a broken lens cover, please get it for me and let me know.

Towelie will most likely post pics since he is climbing it today.

Interesting... I called 5th season yesterday, and they were kinda down on the Wintun/Hotlum route, claimed the road was still snowed over and that there was too much ice. This report sounds more promising. How long was that icy patch by Hotlum?

Ha. I never trust 5th season's recommendations.

The sun is hitting the ice face above the climber's left side of the Hotlum. At least 800 vf of it. I'm sure the tighter chute more directly above the Hotlum to the right of this ice face is a great ice climb right now.






http://209.97.214.134/talk/viewtopic.php?t=3706

Lots of TR right now on splitboard.com

I've climbed and skied that icefield. Pretty cool to look down between your legs and see air below your heels and the glacier below. Some sweet exposure and a rush to ski.
Nice threads on Shasta lately. Way to get'er done!

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Skiing the Konwakiton Chute, Mt. Shasta CA. 5/10/08


Did Shasta on Sat 5/10 and Lassen 5/11. Still some good skiing on Shasta, but ya better do it sooner than later and know where to look. Ranger report claims snowpack is 51% at treeline. Still skiable to the bunny flat lot (~2-4ft). But I’d say it’s time to move away from the SW access (except for some of the upper chutes looked good) and move to the SE and E sides (clearcreek/brewer). I wouldn’t wait too long though and definitely hit these before the roads are melted out given the thin snow on the high elevations. We had an awesome day with really smooth snow on the upper mountain so I can’t complain. Really stoked to hit the H/W soon! Some dudes from Ashford(?) said McLaughlin has great coverage and Lassen on Sunday looked fantastic on the north side.

Pics:


The Trinity chutes looked great, but snow below them is getting textured:


A lot of the Gulch has really shallow snow pack and getting textured. Me thinks this isn’t the normal suncupping nor fin/shingle formation process but from the shallow snow on top of the hollow rocks on the final stage before it melts out:


I think it was easier for me to skin up these than for the climbers who booted up since I stayed on top of them. I skinned to the bottom of the heart.

Had some time to kill, so did some scoping of the “Thumbs Down” chutes off of Sargents:
Thumb rock and the top of “thumbs down”


But from the bottom (later) it looks like it doesn’t go: (thumbs down on the left, Konwakiton icefall gulley on right):


“Two thumbs down” – still good to go, even cleaner in the choke than last year when we skied it:


from the bottom. Actually both exits are good right now:

To access any of these now ya gotta hike up the gulch further until it get’s less steep so you don’t knock rocks on the folks below, then traverse back down the ridge.

Never been up to Thumb rock before, so gave it a try. Easy scramble up to it. View south towards the chutes and ski bowl:


View N/E down the Konwakiton. We were thinking about skiing the Konwakiton proper, but it was whiting out and I couldn’t see if it was opening up yet down low.. Didn’t chance it.


View direct north with the upper Konwakiton (left) and the Konwakiton chute upper right:

ooh, you can see the upper edge of clearcreek on the far right. It looked good up high and down low. I’d bet it’d be prime for the next 2-3 weeks.

Met up with JC on the top of the redbanks and decided to stop at the low plateau (13’300). The sun was gone and visibility dropping. No way did we want to ski the Gulch and figured the west face wouldn’t be soft yet, so hit the Konwakiton chute again since it’d been getting that direct Southerly sun. Met up with Ingmar (?) who decided to join in. pretty smooth :


The kid was a ripper:


JC:


Glad we didn’t ski the Konwakiton proper. Things are starting to open at the rollover:


JC:


Ingmar:


Snow on the lower glacier was $$$, smooth with top 2-3 inches, but it felt firm below it.


PSA from JC: a splitboard would be nice for the couple hundred foot hike up to Shastarama


Here’s the ski bowl with the Shastarama gulley in the back. Still great coverage with maybe a 10-15 ft hike from the ridge to snow, but it wasn’t as smooth as usual. The gulley and lower ski bowl was ok. Coverage on the road is great.


Thought about doing the steeper N/E shot off of shastina perpendicular to the whitney glacier on sunday, but it looked kinda thin and we couldn’t see if the shrund was open so we skipped it. The mellow(er) NW shot looked good, but not sure about coverage down low:


North side looked more like September/ice season:

It almost lookes like that upper hotlum ice gully from the north summit is bare. And the rock rib separating the glaciers is already visible. Weird.

Would love to hear some beta from anyone with pics from the east side. Sorry for the long post, the beer made me do it :oops:

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you rock abe. thanks for the update. I'm hoping to go up there for something soon.

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

This is just some quick, relatively objective beta for anyone in the Shasta area looking to ski on the East Side of Shasta. We bivied out on the Brewer Creek trailhead road at 5, 240 feet just past the Forest Service sign stating "Brewer Creek Trailhead 9 miles" on Friday night, May 16th. We were stopped from driving further by some deeper snow on the road ( a section of snow maybe knee deep for a few hundred feet). Saturday, May 16th, we skiied the Hotlum Wintum route from just at the summit and had essentially continuous snow (few booting steps over volcanic talus here and there) to 6000 feet where we were able to link snow tongues and ski right to the car (some forest hiking here and there). Sierra Souljah mentioned putting up some pics and more entertaining prose in the near future!
Here is some more beta and pics from Amar: http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_sn ... ic=10117.0

Tucker, Sierra Soulja (great name),

Awesome Job with the almost 9000ft day !!!



we kinda felt the same way on the South side (konwakiton) the previous weekend, but weren't sure what to make of it. what elevations are like this would you say?

Here's some pics from the plane on sunday:

shasta from the East:


from the SE:


McClaughlin:
wow, the lake is still snow covered!


CraterLake:

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Towlie,

I would say the glacier ice detectable under the snow on the upper Wintun was between 10500 - 12000 feet.

ss

here's a pic from ericwells
the north side is definately not in skiing condition up high. That gully in the middle that they skied is really fun however and probably really smooth.




Here's conditions one year I skied the north side June 13th.

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

Nice aerial photos, Towelie! I was just able to view those for the first time today. That seems like a great way to check out lines and conditions on Shasta. Keep those reconnaissance photos coming!
Mike, those comparison photos say it all. Time to get on Shasta ASAP!

Skiied Hotlum/Wintun on Monday 6/2. Probably the best overall conditions I’ve ever had on it!!! Really smooth corn from 12,800-->8500, minor cups forming below 8500(2-3"). Above 12800 it hasn't gone the cycle and has some debris, but hopefully that'll smoothen and corn soon. I’d guess It’ll be perfect this coming weekend and still good/great for another 1-2 after that. It doesn’t seem too far off of a normal season, maybe 2 weeks early? I'm sure it'd be marginally skiable(painful but doable) on the 4th, and maybe longer if we have another refresh. Go get it!!!




Pics:
Sunrise and arby’s time:

note, I did an all arby’s diet on this climb, cause I was late driving back from lassen on Sunday and too lazy to shop. 3am at the car: arby’s #1, 5am(above) #2, 9:30 AM (1300ft #3), and #4 on the summit. Gross?... perhaps. Convienient?...definitely :)

summit at sunrise. The snowfield(right) is very smooth only ~2-4 tracks. The wintun had a wet lide and some debris:




some debris above 13000. still skiable cause it was soft. Hopefully it'll melt and smooth out for y'all:





McClaughlin from the summit:


My tracks in the upper gulley:


Wintun from 12'800 down was perfect if you go left of the debris:




Back on the snowfield, really smooth down to the flats:




Brewer creek drainage @ ~7000ft. I skiied all the way to ~6500ft, only 10-20 min walk back to the car. (thank you GPS!)


Road/access beta:

You can drive up to about 3-4 miles from the trailhead with a pretty sizable snow drift blocking you right at the 42N10/N02 junction at ~6400?6500ft. I drove back down and took a logging road so I could have a better fall line to the actual brewer creek gulley. I parked at ~6300ft and you can ski the Brewer gulley down to ~6500 ft, giving almost a 8000ft descent. I’d bet that other creek that crosses the normal access road closer to the brewer creek trailhead also goes to the road still.

Below ~7200ft it’s patchy and you’ll be walking unless you’re in one of the creek gulleys. From 7200→7700 it’s big enough patches to ski, maybe have to do some connecting. Above 7700ft it’s pretty much “ski anywhere you want”. Of course, that’s just guestimated, and prolly different next weekend. set your GPS on your climb, and try to find one of the creek gullies early on if you can to maximize your ski. don't follow my tracks or you'll end up in the brewer creek gulley.

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These pics are from June 4th. some new snow for sure. Possibly improving the north side with some skiable snow over the dry glacier. Probably smoothed out the snow nicely where it was hanging in there. I got snowed out of a short ski trip up there and went biking instead.

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

Holy Toledo, Ohio, look at those gas prices!

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some more pics of the north and west sides taken June 10, 2008. Really grim snow this spring, but Shasta got 2 feet above 10,000' last week. Snow above 11,000' is unbelievably smooth.



Hotlum Wintum (east side ski descent above Brewer Creek Trailhead) is the left skyline in this picture.

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Mike Schwartz
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went up the east side on a windy day and got to about 12,700' before calling it. It wasn't impossible to climb, but the skiing was beyond rock hard. We went up to just where my line makes a zig zag, where you cross over to a steeper snow slope to the summit.

route shown here, mountain viewed from the north on hwy 97


view from the 20 miles of logging roads you drive getting in there. Don't plan on going back to town once you commit to the trailhead.


we walked a mile to get to the trailhead due to snow blocking the road. Some funny guy drove over the snowbanks in a car. We met him going up in the afternoon to camp. He was totally tripping, telling us how beautiful we were. He must have just rammed the car into the snowbanks and gotten lucky.










These were tracks from a few days ago. Ski penetration today was zero.


Roger climbing with Mt. McCloughlin to the north. I skied this the day before. Both days had good climbing conditions, but poor skiing. They would have been better had I reversed it. McCloughlin is lower and has numerous aspects to drop in on from the summit. Only it get more stormy weather and cloud cover, with no specific mountain forcast to check.


This older guy skied the rock hard stuff better than me. He said he's been coming to Shasta for 30 years.


Looking back at the Hotlum Glacier. There was no way to get out of the strong north wind. No south tilt or wind protection. Hard to predict weather on a Mt. Shasta, they say the mountain makes it's own weather being so big and on it's own.


Here's were most people turn around, as I have numerous times too. At 12,500' there is a flattish spot to hang out and hide from the wind, and make the decision to tough it out in poor conditions or go look for better snow down lower. Still nearly a 6000' day. Crazy you can ski 7500' of snow right now, with 4000' smooth as can be.

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

Just did avy gulch on Shasta yesterday (no pics). First shasta trip and reeeeally good snow.
As I drove up to parking area at 3:30 am there was a continuous string of headlamps going up avy gulch, lol. I started out at 4 am and just headed into the trees in a straight line w/ avy gulch. I came upon a couple of headlamps going up a ridge in the dark and it was a ranger + one. He asked if I knew if this was Sargeant ridge. Since I had no idea I said "no, I know bunny trail is to my left. I'll figure it out". I got to the top and ended up traversing into avy gulch. Didn't seem like a bad route imo. Quicker?

Soooo many ppl on mtn today. Got to 11k mark and started feeling like crap. Thought it was just altitude and so forth, but turns out I was coming down w/ a sickness I currently have now. Probably swine flu.

Made it summit at 10:15am. Rode from summit. First pitch off summit is just survival traversing. Most of rime on flat below summit had been smoothed out so not horrendous, just bad. Misery hill was rime free and you could make turns, albeit frozen ones. Was planning on West face but was too early still plus I was getting chills and the Trinity chutes looked reaaaaally good and better than west face anyway. So dropped in those about noon and milked the riders right side of avy gulch all the way down. Sick, sick snow and hardly any tracks.

Pretty cool to do a 7k+ descent right to the car and only unstrapped twice for a total of about 100 yds.

Here's a couple pics from road:

The Hotlum Wintun route was in good shape today. We drove, hydro/snow planed to within 5 miles of the Brewer Cr trailhead. A downed tree and deep snow slowed further progress but it was enough to be within 2 1/2 miles of the Brewer trailhead in a direct shot (GPS helpful). The snowpack surface is smooth, and was forming nice corn from 10, 500 ft and lower at 930AM despite some wind.

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.

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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?

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Mike Schwartz
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mike@thebackcountry.net

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

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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