Mt Shasta - 3rd Time's the Charm

Mt Shasta, June 23-24, 2018

Several months ago, I signed up for an F5 event to climb Mt Shasta via Casaval Ridge. I had another Shasta trip planned via Avalanche Gulch in May and figured I’d do it by the easy route first, then a harder (or at least slightly more technical) route a month later. As it turned out, in May we had terrible weather and didn’t get anywhere near the summit. The Casaval Ridge plan changed to Avalanche Gulch after a couple of Corneliu’s friends told him they did the ridge earlier in the week and found that the catwalk was melted out and there was a section with a steep ice traverse. Corneliu (and probably Aaron and Ian) wouldn’t have found this insurmountable. The other 5 of us without as much technical experience were not up to that, nor did we have the gear for it. I was expecting to be the group member with the least amount of experience, but several of the people who RSVP’d “going” didn’t end up going and a couple others came along who had no prior mountaineering experience, putting me solidly in the middle of the pack.

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