June 30, 2011, Mt Shasta, Avy Gulch + HW + Sun Bowl
6/30/11
US elsewhere
2925
4
If youre looking for a ski destination for the holiday weekend I highly recommend Shasta. Shasta is in great shape right now with a smooth upper mountain and lots of snow. Ive skied from the summit 6 times and today was the best conditions Ive had with smooth skiing off the pinnacle, plateau, mostly smooth skiing down Misery Hill, and then amazingly perfect smooth hero corn from the base of Misery Hill to Lake Helen.
Jonathan was able to skin from Bunnny Flat the entire way to the summit except for a small portion near the top of the summit pinnacle while I ended up cramponing most of the route. On the summit Jonathan descended the first 2000 of Hotlum-Wintun (his preferred way to access Hotlum-Wintun is by first summiting via a different route) then climbed back to the summit to ski down Avy Gulch. I skied from the summit to Helen then skinned back up to the bench lookers left above Helen. To finish the day we traversed Green Butte ridge from lower Avy Gulch (at ~8100) then skinned to the top of Sun Bowl (smooth skiing on the steeps of sun bowl), and then traversed back over suncups to Bunny Flat. Total vertical 10,356 for Jonathan with my estimated vertical a little over 9k (need to download my GPS track to get final stats).
A smooth avy gulch from Helen Lake:
Jonathan and his TLT5s:
Jonathan was able to skin from Bunnny Flat the entire way to the summit except for a small portion near the top of the summit pinnacle while I ended up cramponing most of the route. On the summit Jonathan descended the first 2000 of Hotlum-Wintun (his preferred way to access Hotlum-Wintun is by first summiting via a different route) then climbed back to the summit to ski down Avy Gulch. I skied from the summit to Helen then skinned back up to the bench lookers left above Helen. To finish the day we traversed Green Butte ridge from lower Avy Gulch (at ~8100) then skinned to the top of Sun Bowl (smooth skiing on the steeps of sun bowl), and then traversed back over suncups to Bunny Flat. Total vertical 10,356 for Jonathan with my estimated vertical a little over 9k (need to download my GPS track to get final stats).
A smooth avy gulch from Helen Lake:
Jonathan and his TLT5s:
Beautiful!
Congrats on the hero corn.
;D
Congrats on the hero corn.
;D
AMAZING! I cant believe how much snow is down there still! I made the trip the 2nd week of May and it still looks the same.
I'm ready to go back!!!
I'm ready to go back!!!
author=Jeff Huber link=topic=21335.msg91305#msg91305 date=1309497419]Jonathan was able to skin from Bunnny Flat the entire way to the summit except for a small portion near the top of the summit pinnacle while I ended up cramponing most of the route.
And excluding the rather substantial portion from about 1k above Helen to Red Banks!
(Still can't believe I even skinned that portion once...)
Some additional pictures here:
http://timefortuckerman.com/forums/showpost.php?p=152866&postcount=4
Man that looks good!
Thanks for the recap.
Thanks for the recap.
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