Lassen / Shasta Conditions Anyone?

[~mikey b]

Yeah that's good.

[jibmaster]

Nice drop!

[TahoeJ]

That was sweet!

[Lone Star]

awesome pics jibmaster! headed up there yesterday and the wind kept the stuff up high good well into the afternoon. fun skiing in the giant red firs back to the parking lot, though those big hot spring holes really do creep up on you!


still some snow at the visitors center (6700 ft)

[Ottime]

Gotta get up there. I have a single Saturday on Memorial Day weekend. Split between Sonora Pass and Lassen.

[CaliBrit]

Any Beta on how Shasta is skiing right now?

Planning an ascent next weekend on skis. How sketchy is the snow, need whippets for self arrest?

Have crampons for my bindings should the snow get super hard.

[plurpimpin]

Any Beta on how Shasta is skiing right now?

Planning an ascent next weekend on skis. How sketchy is the snow, need whippets for self arrest?

Have crampons for my bindings should the snow get super hard.

Also interested on the conditions, Gonna be down that way Wed-Sun next week to climb and ski

[jimw]

Any beta is probably moot because it's snowing there right now. That said, looks like a weather window next week, and the climbing report posted today indicates good corn conditions on the usual avy gulch route:

http://www.shastaavalanche.org/gener...valanche-gulch

Avalanche Gulch is currently in good to great condition for both climbing and skiing/boarding. As of right now, you will be on snow for the entirety of your trip, from Bunny Flat to the summit. The snow conditions are in classic spring form with firm and smooth snow in the morning hours, then corn snow in the afternoon. A few spring storms have deposited trace amounts of new snow here and there, but overall general melt/freeze conditions prevail.

Could be awesome, report back on what you find!

[Skiwald]

Heading to shasta Wed-Fri this week. Planning on going up avalanche gulch, camping at Lake helen Wed and Thursday nights, summit on Thursday.

[CaliBrit]

Heading to shasta Wed-Fri this week. Planning on going up avalanche gulch, camping at Lake helen Wed and Thursday nights, summit on Thursday.

Please report back!

[96avs01]

Might see you up there, thinking about up Casaval and down Avy Gulch for Friday-Sunday with camp at the top of Giddy Giddy Gulch.

[plurpimpin]

Anybody got any ideas for good places to camp on Casaval that would be easily accessible (relatively) from the west face to retrieve overnight gear? I've heard around 11k there's a spot that you can traverse into. Trying to avoid climbing back up to the ridge if possible. We're hoping to summit via Casaval and then ski the west face gully, grab our gear, and set up camp in hidden valley to try to ski shastina the next day.

[jimw]

I would just camp in Hidden Valley period. You can climb right onto Casaval from there (getting onto Casaval proper around 10k where it gets interesting), and you can ski directly back to camp from the West Face. Otherwise, there's a good flat spot just above Hidden Valley at about 9.5k (but if you're gonna do that you might as well camp in HV), and some spots around 10k or so. If you camp there, I think there is really no way to avoid some climbing back to the ridge, though if you traverse in the right spots you can make it just a short booter. But really I think it's much more fun to just run it out all the way to camp in HV. Especially if you're already planning on camping there the 2nd night.

[plurpimpin]

I would just camp in Hidden Valley period. You can climb right onto Casaval from there (getting onto Casaval proper around 10k where it gets interesting), and you can ski directly back to camp from the West Face. Otherwise, there's a good flat spot just above Hidden Valley at about 9.5k (but if you're gonna do that you might as well camp in HV), and some spots around 10k or so. If you camp there, I think there is really no way to avoid some climbing back to the ridge, though if you traverse in the right spots you can make it just a short booter. But really I think it's much more fun to just run it out all the way to camp in HV. Especially if you're already planning on camping there the 2nd night.

That's kinda what I was thinking too. Seems like the most logical approach to have a good ski and not deal with lugging tons of crap up the ridge. If that were the case is there a decent way to get on Casaval without missing too much of the fun stuff? Most of the beta pics I've seen of Casaval from Hidden Valley show climbing an easier alternative to gain the ridge at ~11.8k feet (See Pic) which to me defeats the point of climbing Casaval. To get on the ridge around 10k would you just follow the mellower slope in the bottom right of the pic?

I'm sure it'll be more obvious once we're there looking at the mountain. I just like to have as good of an idea as I can before getting there. My only concern with camping at hidden valley was that I wasn't sure how steep a climb it was from there to gain the ridge.

[CaliKid]

Any beta on Lassen conditions? Debating either a Sonora or Lassen trip on Sunday. Are you on snow until the road at the Devastated Area? Is the road snow-covered past that gate? Website claims the south is now plowed but closed up to Lake Helen. Thanks.

[Derelicht]

That's kinda what I was thinking too. Seems like the most logical approach to have a good ski and not deal with lugging tons of crap up the ridge. If that were the case is there a decent way to get on Casaval without missing too much of the fun stuff? Most of the beta pics I've seen of Casaval from Hidden Valley show climbing an easier alternative to gain the ridge at ~11.8k feet (See Pic) which to me defeats the point of climbing Casaval. To get on the ridge around 10k would you just follow the mellower slope in the bottom right of the pic?

I'm sure it'll be more obvious once we're there looking at the mountain. I just like to have as good of an idea as I can before getting there. My only concern with camping at hidden valley was that I wasn't sure how steep a climb it was from there to gain the ridge.

It's pretty easy to get to Casaval from the obvious camp site areas in Hidden Valley. I've had lots of fun camping in HV and doing lots of different routes on West Face and around Casaval. That said the only time I've attempted to summit, it was right up West Face so I can't speak to taking Casaval ridge all the way up. I was/am planning on heading up there this weekend, but looking like some weather for Sat. I called the Shasta ranger station, they didn't think there would be much moisture, if any, but sounds like the cloud deck will be right around 10-11k. They didn't sound to optimistic for a corn cycle. The direct quote was 'not great conditions for Saturday but better than the atrocious ones for the last couple weekends.' I'm on the fence now between Shasta and something futher south...Matterhorn?

[pajamas]

Thanks for posting that GIF Jimw. That was a good day.

Just got off the phone with Lassen. Road is clear but will NOT open this weekend from the SW entrance to bumpass hell or summit lot. They have to do road work still. It is open to Sulfur works. Road is open to Devastated Area.

[brutah]

Spent tuesday through thursday skiing on shasta and shastina. It was rad. First day we went up avy gulch to thumb rock and enjoyed perfect corn at 430 (winds on misery hill and our late start of 1030am kept summit ambitions down). Next day, we started slightly earlier, went up the west face, summited and then enjoyed amazing corn all way back to the car. No wind on the summit. Thursday skied shastina at 3ish down into the gulch skiers left of diller canyon, it leads right to black butte, another 4800 vert ski descent and only a short hike back to hidden valley and then back to the car. Conditions were prime everyday. Ran into amar andalkar on the shasta summit after he skinned from bunny flat to the summit! He said skiing the west face that day was top ten in ski descents for him, conditions were that good. Amar and I skied shastina the following day.

Friday we were up in oregon skiing McLaughlin. Snow was a little mushier that day but still had decent conditions.

Personally, I was a fan of camping at bunny flats and starting from there every day. But I dont like camping on snow if it can be avoided. Still snow all the way down to bunny flat and the snow is nice and consolidated making for perfect summer snowpack

[Skiwald]

So this past Wednesday we skinned up to Helen Lake to set up camp just before sunset. It was a cold night but not much wind. The following morning we started out for the summit at 8am hoping the snow up high would soften up in time for us to ski Trinity Chutes on the way down. Pretty easy hike to the summit. We were in crampons from helen lake to the summit. Others did skin a bit above helen lake but it was pretty firm. Quite windy on the summit. Was not really worth bring the skis up past misery hill. We got to our intended lines off trinity chutes area around 1pm and waited about 45 min for the snow to soften which it didn't so opted for the bowl lookers left of red cliffs. Snow was pretty hard the first 600 feet but softened up nicely from there down. Great soft pow. We did have a few small skier triggered wet slides below 11k ft which we saw evidence of the previous day as well.

Overall great conditions for hiking and skiing. Timing for weather and snow conditions are everything. Hard to get ut good from top to bottom.


Here's some photos:

[Harry Tuttle]

Thanks for all the reports. Looking good.

Is there a good skier's map or guide book to help a first-timer plan a trip?

[brutah]

Thanks for all the reports. Looking good.

Is there a good skier's map or guide book to help a first-timer plan a trip?

There's a map that you can get in shasta city that has all the climbing/skiing routes highlighted.

But really climbing and skiing shasta is super easy especially if you're going up from bunny flat, you'll be staring at almost all of the route for hours.

[SchralphMacchio]

5th Season is the shop that sells that map. For a two day trip this time of year 95% of people are schlepping camp up to Helen Lake or Hidden Valley and them summitting from there.

Getting lost on the way up is difficult, but making sure you take the correct drainage retracing your steps back to the car is a big deal ... use a cell phone GPS app to track your steps if you are a first timer as there are a lot of people who wander the woods for hours.

My main advice for a first timer is to be extra diligent really managing rockfall/icefall and temps/timing on the way up and down. Too late up puts you at risk for avy or ice/rockfall exposure on the way down. It's easy to underestimate that 5000' of overhead exposure means that a rock coming at you will easily reach 65 mph. Ice cube size pieces of ice or rock hurt bad. Softball sized pieces can really mess you up. I've had to outrun something between a microwave oven and small electric oven before.

[LightRanger]

Thanks for all the reports. Looking good.

Is there a good skier's map or guide book to help a first-timer plan a trip?

http://www.amazon.com/Mt-Shasta-Book...sap_bc?ie=UTF8

[Harry Tuttle]

Thanks for tips

[SchralphMacchio]

6-10" on Diller today. tastic vis. Very minimal winds. Death star came out for an hour late morning and snow got hella thick, compacted down to 6-8". Clouds came back in and the snow reconsolidated. Overall the snow stayed reasonably dry and fast. Could be variable tomorrow.