June 29, 2010, Green Butte-Sun Bowl,Mt. Shasta

We drove up to Bunny Flats the previous evening and, surprisingly, the weekday crowd was overflowing the parking area.  We drove back down the hill to a quiet campsite with a view of the lowlands.  Bunny Flats, at 6700€™, still has snow at the parking area, but it€™s melting fast.  I left the TH at 9am hoping the sun cups would have softened.  I started the climb with my ski crampons mounted.  I€™ve found that the crampons provide that extra bite you need to penetrate the sun cups that you are constantly bridging.  The sun cups on the flats are getting deep, and the trenches which are developing among the sun cups are an irritant.  I found a few climbers€™ trails and followed them for awhile until I reached the trees to begin ascending towards Green Butte.  The coverage in the trees is getting spotty at the lower elevations.  My route was rather serpentine until I broke out of the trees near 7900€™.  There were sun cups even in the trees but their size was manageable. 

This is a great tour because it gets you above the Avalanche Gulch/Helen Lake climbing crowd.  Once you leave the trees you climb a gentle wide bowl, then a ramp and another modest slope.  I was hoping to the escape the sun cups and runnels, but they were present to my high point around 9400€™.  It was another sunny, warm day with light breezes.  The high point provides an excellent view towards the climbers€™ route from Helen Lake.  There is a view of Shastarama, then a nice ski-able ramp into Ski Bowl, plus there are 2 bivy sites on the rock formation at the high point.  By noon, the sun cups had softened and I started down.  It was a bumpy ride so I skied to the top of Sun Bowl.  Three boarders were trying to decide where to go, and it was obvious to us that the steep face on Sun Bowl was soft and relatively smooth.  The descent down the face was about 1000vf, and it was the best part of the whole trip.  Once off the face, I began the long, descending traverse through the glades of sun cups.  It was a combination of deep sun cups, trenches and bare segments.  Ugh.  I had to descend to the road and experienced discontinuous snow back to the gate at Bunny Flats.  Ascended 2700vf of sun cups; descended 1700vf of sun cups and 1000vf of smooth, steep corn.  Hmmm, my joy meter was out of balance.

We stopped at the Fifth Season store in town and I asked about the conditions.  They mentioned that the sun cups did not exist about 10 days ago.  Their weather, like ours, went from winter to summer with no gradual spring consolidation.  It has been very hot for the last week, and the heat wave is forecast to continue.  We had our air conditioner blasting while we were in town.  Back to a high elevation campsite to sleep and on to Lassen.  I€™m running low on sun block. ;D

Photo 1:  A view from 7900€™ looking up to Green Butte with Powder Bowl far right, Sun Bowl to the left of Powder Bowl, Shastarama the high point in the center, and in the lower center is a snow berm which hides Helen Lake behind it and the standard climbing route above Helen Lake.  Casaval Ridge is on the far left.  If you€™ve been there, it really makes sense.  ;)

Photo 2: Tracks down Sun Bowl on far right. The little specks at top and far left are the snowboarders.