I like big lifts. That's one thing I learned this last week. I like Mt. Shasta. That's something I already knew. Right now there are no big lifts open on Mt. Shasta so what's a boy to do if he still wants to ski? The answer for many is to ski up and then ski back down. I had never tried this Backcountry skiing business, but I had some thoughts about it. I figured that it is sort of a "pay to play" plan. Work a bit more for your vertical but basically the same sport. Brian is a backcountry skier in addition to his alpine skills. He has been trying to entice me into giving it a try. Last week it all came together. Time to pay for a little play!
Brian, his father Pedro, Rich Meyer of Shasta Mountain Guides (https://shast7.sslcert19.com/node/60) and myself all met Thursday morning to do some skiing on the really big hill. Between Brian and Rich, I was set up with skis that had Randonne bindings and skins to allow me to walk uphill and then convert them back to Alpine style and ski down. My pack had an avalanche beacon and a probe as well. Some food, a variety of clothing layers, water, eye protection and the like were brought along by all. We started up at about 8am.
There had been a welcome snowfall of about a foot Wednesday and so we would be skiing fresh
powder. Excellent! Only a few cars were in the Bunny Flat parking area. With the fresh powder everyone on the mountain knew where everyone else was going by simply following their trails going up. Rich chose to deviate from the main trail towards Helen Lake and get fresh tracks on a few bowls called Powder Bowl and Sun bowl. Off we went.
I have seen people using randonee gear many times and it looked pretty easy. In the end it was more challenging than I expected. I felt very clumsy at first and medium clumsy even after a day of practice. I went through overheating at times, being chilly at others. I got a bit altitude sick. I pushed myself to exhaustion climbing in the the thin air. In the steeper sections it became 20 yards and stop to breath, then 20 more yards and stop to breath. After about 5 hours we had achieved our first goal. We were now overlooking Sun Bowl so we took a break for some food. After lunch the others climbed more to do Powder Bowl. Me? I took a nap. We met back up in about an hour and began our decent back to the car.
How glorious it was! Fresh tracks the whole way. A nice bowl shot followed by easy skiing through trees and meadows. Unfortunately our trail ran back to the parking lot in what seemed like just a few minutes. I was just getting warmed up and the skiing was over! We milled around for a bit by the cars and got to look back up and see our tracks in the bowls. Pedro even thought to bring binoculars so we could really get a good view. Pretty cool to see your ski tracks from this perspective. After a burger in town we headed back south towards Berkeley.
At the end of the day I reflected upon our adventure and decided that while it was fun, it was a lot of effort for the return you got. Five hours of climbing to get one ski run seemed like too steep a price to pay. I wasn't sure if I would want to go again or not.
Over the next few days however, my perspective changed. I didn't think as much about the short decent but about the bigger picture. The climb as a separate component for instance. The climb was hard for any fitness level. My fitness level made it brutal. Like any other endurance sport, hard work and practice would ease this part of the day. If I could climb with less fatigue, I could get higher up the mountain in the same time frame. If I could get higher up, I could ski farther on the way down. There were lots of great lines to ski on the mountain visible from Bunny Flat, and certainly many more from other access areas. Picking them off one at a time would be fun. Lighter gear would help too. I both dreamed and daydreamed over the next few days about doing the trip again. The dreams were not about the decent but of the climb. Pushing myself and enjoying the outdoors are both a big part of my life and this was actually an awesome combination of the two. I even found myself considering staying up at Shasta for a week or two and doing multiple acents to see how far up I could go in one day after acclimating to the altitude. I thought of one day seeing my own ski tracks from the very top in the binoculars. I was getting hooked,
I like big lifts, but I enjoy backcountry skiing as well. I think in the end I will go back to Shasta. Maybe this year, maybe not, but I will be back. Next time I will go higher than sun bowl.
Special thank's to Rich Meyer for his time and expertise. Rich is a great guy in addition to being a hard core backcountry guide. Rich works for NASTC (http://www.skinastc.com/) as their backcountry expert in addition to his Shasta gig (which has taken him to the summit over 80 times). He has also worked in Alaska and South America. If you are interested in doing a trip you can email Rich at richmeyer555@hotmail.com.
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