Mt. Shasta

Though Mt. Shasta (14,162 ft.) is half as high as Everest (~29,035 ft. and climbing), it sure felt like Everest to us!!! This was not just another nature hike or backpacking trip...this was the most arduous, grueling, fatiguing, strenuous, toilsome, challenging and punishing climb we have ever done...in our lives.
We started the drive by stopping off in Sacramento to pick up our snow boots, crampons, and ice ax. That's right I said ice ax. Whe Jon told me that I said, "What! I thought this was a hike." Little did we know what lay in store for us just hours away.

We got to Shasta on a beautiful Friday afternoon and rented helmets because due to the time of year there has been rock and snow slides because of the melting snow. We then drove to the start of the hike. I was already out of breath from getting out of the car because we started at Bunny Flat (6,950 ft.). We had to get "poop bags" because we had to carry out our own stool if we needed to go. As you can see from the pictures, our packs weighed a lot. Thank you to Jon for carrying my heavy boots, crampons and the tent! We started with 2 liters of water and with another couple that was running late.At the beginning of the hike it seemed easy, we thought to ourselves, "this is cake, no big deal". Then the trail narrowed and the grade increased. We needed to take frequent stops to catch our breath from...walking. We finally made it up to a check point called "Horse Camp" where we filled the rest of our empty water supply. Now our packs were heavier with 6 liters and we were getting tired.The trail then turned to rock so we were rock hopping. We then looked up and saw that the trail was almost straight up. We had to get on all fours with our packs on to make it past this point. We were now running into ice but avoided it by staying on the trail of miniture switchbacks. The trail then turned sand-like and our legs are just swelling with our bulging muscles. Our breaks started to get more frequent because we were out of breath very often. We could see base camp where we were supposed to spend the night and it felt like days away. The sun soon set quickly and it was starting to get cold. We had to break out our head lamps and put on some heavier clothes to find the trail in order to continue on. The party ahead of us was too tired to make it to Helen Lake (10,500 ft. where we were originally going to camp for the night) and stopped off at 50/50 Camp (9,400 ft.). We were sweaty and now freezing while attempting to put up our tent and make dinner. This felt like torture! Both Jon and I got to the point where our finger tips were painful and numb from the cold temperatures. We ate dinner in our sleeping bags with multiple layers on. It was horrible exposing yourself to the icy temperature to urinate. We finally fell asleep around 1130pm briefly, then the wind picked up big time. Basically, we both didn't sleep that night though Jon swears he heard me snoring.

Our alarm was set to 4:00am. We both wanted to hit the snooze and call it a day. We both woke up with a little beginnings of altitude sickness with a headache. Jon convinced me that we didn't make it this far to quit now. We then donned our headlamps, boots, crampons, ice ax and camelback and started up to Helen Lake at 4:30am, in the dark.

We were now climbing up ice and had to stop about every 10-20 steps to take a breather. Think of stair climbing without oxygen.
It took us 2 hours to get to Helen Lake. By the time we got to Helen Lake we were pooped. Jon's headache worsened so we decided to call it a day. We rested at the top admiring the beautiful view before the decend.

We slid down part of way on our butts back to camp. After taking our tent down, getting a little breakfast and packing up our backpacks we started the long descend down.On our way down we passed many day hikers who had done this numerous times. The sad part is that these hikers happened to be twice our age. This encouraged us to get off the mountain quicker! We made it down in record time and the altitude sickness was gone. We gave each other a pat on the back for a "good job" for our first time. We then spent the rest of the day sleeping in a hotel after a very long shower! It was so awesome to be able to do this hard challenge together. We might do this again next year...but you will have to ask us next year after we forget the pain of it all...as for now "we rest".