Mud Creek Canyon, Mt. Shasta
Nancy getting organized.
I’ve been jonesing to ski Mt. Shasta because I haven’t been up there for a few years. Nancy mentioned it to a few co-workers at TTSA, and there’s a bunch of guys out there who also want to ski the big mother. However, the hardest part in getting people together to go up there is scheduling—everybody has different commitments and different days off.
Rich and Matt and some weird kind of boots and bindings.
Rich, an electrician at TTSA, managed to get the days off, and he got his buddy Matt to come along as well. Both of them are skiers and have a lot of backcountry experience in hunting and fishing, but neither of them had ever gone backcountry skiing.
Normally, the middle of June is the best time to access the eastern trailheads of Shasta, but due to a huge winter they won’t melt out for another month. We had to camp at about 5,100’ elevation, three miles from the Clear Creek trailhead, because the road was blocked by snow.
We built a campfire with scraps of wood from a bulldozed area.
The long approach meant that we had no shot at the summit, so we planned on hiking up to the timberline and then finding a nice pitch to ski.
We drove up early enough to get our gear organized while there was still daylight, and then scarfed down some pizza around a campfire.
Hitting the trail at 5:20 in the morning, cold pizza in hand.
We got up at 4:30 and got on the trail around 5:20. It was warm and misty at that low elevation. The first mile of the road was mostly dirt with just enough snow drifts to keep you from driving up.
Nancy and Matt putting their skins on.
After a little over a mile, we reached continuous snow on the road and were able to start skinning. The snow was heavily sun-cupped and sap-covered, and would stay that way for the next four miles.
At 6,200’ elevation, the Clear Creek access road still has 3-4 feet of snow.
I knew from checking various web sites that there was a lot of snow in the area, but it was still surprising. In Tahoe, there’s basically no snow until you get up to 7,000’, and many exposures are bare a thousand feet higher.
Rich and Nancy navigating an obstacle.
Since Matt and Rich had never skinned before, they had several miles of easy pitch to get used to it. It’s pretty simple, but there is some technique involved, especially on steeps and traverses.
After a couple of hours, we reached the edge of Mud Creek Canyon. If Rich’s pants look funny, it’s because they are.
The Clear Creek trail hugs the edge of Mud Creek Canyon. It’s arguably the most scenic trail on Shasta—Mud Creek Canyon is a thousand feet deep and features a couple of waterfalls below the glaciers.
You can see the face we skied in the background.
We stopped for breakfast when we reached the edge of the canyon. At this point we were at 7,000’, with another mile distance and one thousand vertical feet to reach the timberline.
This would not be a good trail to ski during a white-out.
The Clear Creek trail follows an old road along the edge of Mud Creek Canyon. Wind action has created a continuous ten-foot cornice that runs for a half-mile.
It felt weird skinning up this trail because it looks so much like a groomer run at a ski area.
We finally reach timberline at 8,000’.
After a mile of the Clear Creek “groomer,” the trees opened up and we were able to pick out lines to ski.
We left Nancy at 8,200’ to go ski an upper snowfield.
At this point we had covered five miles and three thousand vertical feet. Nancy was starting to slow down, so she decided to take a break while we went on, planning to hike until we’d had enough of it.
Man up, cupcake!
We skinned until it got too steep, and then had to boot up a three hundred foot pitch.
Rich and Matt at 9,400’. Nancy is at the upper snowfield at the right edge of the picture.
Rich had borrowed some alpine touring gear, and Matt had rented his gear, so they were both having boot fit issues. We decided to hike up to 10,000’ and call it good.
Skiing like French instructors.
We dropped into a nice, steep pitch just above 10,000’. The snow was perfect corn and firnspiegel. I mean purrrr-fect!
If you look very carefully, you can see three dots—Bret, Rich and Matt.
The snowfield is located to climber’s left of Watkins Glacier.
Bret, having some corn for lunch.
I hadn’t skied snow this good in a long time. Suddenly, all the hiking was worth it and we were wishing we were four thousand feet higher.
As soon as we headed down, the weather turned.
It was sunny for our entire run down. As soon as we reached Nancy the clouds moved in. By the time we had packed up and began skiing down the Clear Creek trail it started raining. Five minutes later hail was coming down like meteorites.
After eleven hours of hiking and skiing, it was nice to take off the boots and have a cold one.
It rained and hailed off and on while we guerilla-skied over branches and tree sap the four miles back to dirt. A mile of hiking and we were done.
Despite not getting anywhere near the summit, it was a really fun trip. We lucked out with the weather and saw a new, very scenic side of the mountain. We definitely have to do it again when the trailheads melt out.
Nancy said that all in all, it was easier than childbirth.
