Mount Shasta, September 1, 2012, 1: Trailhead to campsite
MOUNT SHASTA RISES
in splendid isolation, 14,000 feet, a double volcanic cone anchoring the
southern end of the magnificent Cascade range. (Mount Lassen is even
further south, but lower and less beautiful; and the Sutter Buttes,
technically the southernmost of the Cascades, are little more than hills.)
We've driven past Mt. Shasta so many times, in summer and winter, and
contemplated it so often, and I've always wondered what it would be like to
climb it. When my grandson Simon developed his enthusiasm for mountaineering
— inevitable; he was spending an exchange year in Ecuador at the time — my
own interest re-emerged, and a couple of months ago I suggested that since
he was actually studying the subject perhaps he'd like to be my guide.
So we planned a Labor Day weekend get-together, we and our Portland daughter
Giovanna, Pavel and Simon; booked a few nights at the cheap and friendly
Alpine Lodge, and we three guys spent an overnight at base camp while the
girls had a nice meal in neighboring Dunsmuir. Saturday afternoon we stopped
at the Forest Ranger headquarters in Mount Shasta City to get our hiking
permits ($20 per person) and a little information. They confirmed what we'd
already determined, from Internet reports and local advice: the Clear Creek
trail would be the quickest and easiest approach, and would still offer lots
of nice scenery.
So we drove out to the Clear Creek trailhead parking lot, following helpful
directions posted in a trip
report at summitpost.org — thank you, dyolfthe!
This involves five miles of paved road beyond the town of McCloud, then
about seven and a half miles of dirt road, easily driven in this dry
weather. All this country is forest, of course: from the road there didn't
seem to be much
Pavel hits the trail from the parking lot
TRAILHEAD (el. 6500 feet): The parking lot was quite full
of cars when we arrived, about quarter past two in the afternoon. There are
no improvements here at all beyond a pit toilet: no water, above all. The
trail takes off through forest, through a couple of bends, then straight
ahead through forest and forest clearings for about a mile and a half. Here
and there in the clearings were clumps of low lupine, and at one point we
saw a female blue grouse, a calm, careful hen who waited for me to get
within say twenty feet, then turned and walked comfortably away from the
trail. The soil is sandy, strewn about with rocks ranging from pebble-sized
to cobbles, with occasional larger stones tossed here and there; and there
are still low lupine in bloom, and mounds of yellow buckwheat,
Grouse on the trail
Since there were a few forest fires burning nearby the skies
were quite smoky; we didn't get much of a view of the mountain itself from
the trail, even after it broke into the open finally, giving us a view out
over what seemed at first a pretty bleak landscape. The sand was
considerably more like ash now; the rocks considerably bigger, big enough to
clamber up onto, many of them very smoothly polished, beige, grey, even
quite red. We were nearing our campsite, as close as we could get to the
summit while still finding water nearby.
Simon and Pavel check the map; Mt. Shasta barely visible in the
haze
Looking down toward the creek from our campsite flower garden
Trailhead
to base camp: 3.3 miles, 2100 feet ascent, 2 hours 45 minutes including
rests
(All such information here based on Motion-X trail software report
and subject to error)
