Fred, Eric and I climbed Mount Shasta for Memorial Day's week-end in 1999. We left Los Angeles at noon on Friday and got to Shasta Village around midnight after a long drive. Mount Shasta is a snow-covered volcano in Northern California. It really stands out in the middle of the flat Northern Californian forests. It is impressively big and covered with multiple glaciers. We climbed it by the Casaval Ridge, which is a classic moderately technical route. We skied up to the main camp, located at 10300', then went a bit further up to take some turns. The number of  people was impressive, and the rangers were going from tent to tent to check if everybody knew how to use an iceaxe, and demonstrate it if necessary. We were happy not to be on the main route the next day, where we could see lots of people sliding... From the main camp, we reached the ridge via a steep snowfield, and then put the skis on the back to go up the ridge. It was mainly snowclimbing, with a few short rock sections. At the end of the ridge, we thought we were close but we still had to cross the summit plateau and gain the true summit. It was pretty windy and we were a bit tired but the idea to put our skis on gave us some energy and we took some nice turns down Avalanche Gully, the main route to the top on that face.

 

Mount Shasta from the trailhead. Avalanche Gully, which we skied down, is the main slope facing the camera. The ridge on the left of it is the Casaval Ridge and is the way we went up.

 

Fred, Eric and Javier at the top from left to right. The summit is very nice, and we had some superb views on the first volcanoes of the Casacade range miles away.