June 11, 2004, Shasta Hotlum-Wintun

After researching extensively, I decided on Hotlum Wintun as being the most interesting ski ascent/descent; I don't get down to California that often and wanted to make the most of it. Coming in from the north the Military Pass road was narrow but well maintained (kept me below 20 mph tho) , and once joining 19 the road was considerably improved.  Brewer trailhead still blocked by snow over a mile from end, so extra distance and elevation (cut the switchbacks when hiking to save time).  Skinning was possible from the wilderness line up, tho I hoofed it a little higher than when first possible. I started at about 5 Am and could have started even earlier w/o headlamp. Once onto main body of snowfield skiing was fine up to about 10.5K but scoured conditions made skinning inefficient beyond. I stuck with skins longer than I should ski crampons would have been ideal here (I had none). The 'middle gully' mentioned in the Smoot description of this route was blue ice, I saw one skier going up it from far below but I didn't see the point. I took the upper Wintun way, which was much too steep for skinning, though it wasn't nearly as hard frozen as was the main snowfield, so booting with crampons was pleasant enough (or would have been, had my crampon straps on R side not kept falling off. Note to self - do not assume that crampons you find in the garage that you don't even remember buying will work without fail under actual mountain conditions.) I had been making fine pace til about 12.6 where transitioned to Wintun but then pace got worse and worse. As I wheezed my way up the hourglass of upper Wintun saw another skier bootpacking and angling in from Clear Ck route, and met him as our routes joined. Casual conversation revealed that we were both from Seattle, and then I discovered that this was in fact our illustrious Amar. I'm sort of solitary so I don't meet that many TAY people except by chance, and don't recognize many of y'all by face. Now I know about how to recognize Amar even from a distance - the hat. Amar was of course making much better pace than I; I haven't been as high as 14K since I was a teenager, not working on enough sleep and water, and was just bonking. I think the last 1400 vf took nearly three hours. Amar was kind enough to wait on the summit, and since our descents shared about the top 1000' we headed off together at just about 3 PM. The top 1000' was sort of a mixed up mess but still turnable, I was still trying to get my legs back and couldn't muster much style here. Amar and I diverged here and I caught a few glimpes of his descent before he angled out of view. From about 12800 down I decided to go down the Wintun Glacier proper on skiers left, because I felt that the H-W snowfield would have had too much scoured texture even if it had softened up. From 12800 down to about 10000 it was awesome smooth corn, which ate up big GS turns with wonderful waterfall sounds emanating from beneath the skis. Man that felt good. Other skiers had preceded me off summit and soon enough the Wintun Glacier was looking like a heliski ad.



From about 10K to treeline the suncups and other surface damage made it harder to find good ski surface but all was soft enough to just blast over. Cumulus had been chasing me up the mountain (overtaking me a few times) and this had kept the lower slopes from becoming too soft, I think. Lots of people heading in to camp Friday evening above timberline. Timberline and below was a very amusing game of connecting the ribbons of snow, which was still pleasant enough not mooshy, and I could keep the skis on to within 10 minutes of the car.
Total time was 9.5 hours up and just over an hour down. If you were strong enough and bullheaded enough I bet you could descent the entire 7K+ vertical of this route in 25 minutes, it's that straightforward. I'd totally recommend this as a way to ski Shasta, but I'd affirm the statements that it is better to hit this route before the trailhead is melted out. With the new snow last week it would have been even better. I don't know enough about the meltout patterns to say how much longer it will last.