Tokopah wall - Snow Boots - 3 star adventure with 1 star climbing

 I met with Christopher for a day of adventure climbing in Sequoia National park. Chris is one of those special few climbers who enjoys a solid bushwhack and isn't afraid of a bunch of hiking to get out climbing. My kind of guy. We saddled up to give the moderate adventure "Snow Boots" on the Tokopah wall a go.  

The approach takes the pleasant and popular Tokopah falls trail out of Lodgepole. We hiked to the end of the trail, past the Watchtower right to the falls themselves.

The mighty watchtower

Tokopah falls

From the falls it was a short and bushy scamble up to the base of the slab/wall. From the trailhead I believe it took us somewhere in the range of 2 hours. Finding the start of the climb was surprisingly easy. Chris headed off and we swung leads up the wall for a total of 7 pitches. The climbing on the first 5 pitches was very easy, nothing harder than 5.6, and we quickly dispatched those.

Chris heading up a nice moderate crack on P3

Big comfy ledge at the top of P5

 

The last 2 pitches were the only parts of the climb that had any real climbing. Pitch 6 started out with a  short beautiful hand crack, which quickly gave way to a wide low angle crack (reminiscent of some 5.8 off-widths in Yosemite). As the pitch progressed, the crack became increasingly wet. Eventually it was rather difficult to avoid the wetness, and my shoes were soaked. Placing your feet on wet granite with wet shoes is rather exciting. 

Looking down from the top of P6

P7 - the crack was very wet inside!

 

The top of P6 was a semi-hanging belay in a puddle. This made exiting the belay rather difficult, luckily we had packed two #4 cams, so despite the slipperiness and wetness we always had reasonable pro.

We found are way to the summit and enjoyed some snacks, and excellent views of Alta peak and the Watchtower.

wonderful views

Christopher on the summit

We had vague instructions on the walk-off to descend down the Horse creek drainage. We expected a heinous, difficult descent, but it really was not all that bad. It only got bushy near the bottom of the drainage. It was fairly obvious where to go, and was pretty pleasant for most of it. 

Christopher eyes the way down

A bit bushy at the bottom, not too bad

Back at Lodgepole we hit up the store and grabbed a beer! Luxury! A great day out with a competent, fit and adventurous partner.

Shastina and Mt. Shasta - Ski Descents

For my 44th birthday (geez, I'm getting old) I put some of my new found love of ski touring to use and heading out for a 3-day ski mountaineering trip to Mt. Shasta with Ted.

I had previously climbed  and summited Mt. Shasta  3 times, once from the north via. Hotlum-Bolum ridge, and twice by Casaval ridge. For this outing, we opted to head to the more obscure Hidden valley (9200') to set a base camp to climb both Shastina (12,335', 3rd highest Cascade volcano) via cascade gulch, and Mt. Shasta (14,179', 2nd highest Cascade volcano) by the west face. 

Shastina - Our ascent and descent routes

Mt. Shasta - our ascent and descent routes

We opted for a 3 day itinerary, mostly because i) I am out of shape, ii) I know my body needs time to acclimate. Classes ended on May 10th, and I had a few days before giving exams, so we drove up May 11th, arriving at the Bunny flat trailhead around 1 PM. It was HOT, summer is arriving in California.

Ted's ready to go at the Bunny flat parking lot

 

Its a ~ 4 mile ski with ~2500' of elevation gain to reach the camp site at Hidden valley. The approach starts on the standard avalanche gulch approach and then veers up and west around the toe of Casaval ridge at Horse camp. It was hot, the snow was slushy, and it was slow going with heavy packs

Ted on the approach to hidden valley

 

Crossing a gully on the way to hidden valley

We reached hidden valley maybe 3 hours later (slow indeed!). Found a nice spot to pitch our tent and enjoyed the sunshine. There were 2 more parties camped at hidden valley, a group of folks on foot, and what appeared to be a guided ski party of 3. We lounged around, ate, melted snow for water and slowly acclimated.

Ted relaxes at camp

Home sweet home for 3 days

For the first day we aimed to climb and ski Shastina, the smaller subpeak of Mt. Shasta. Sitting at just over 12,000' it seemed like a logical choice for a day of acclimatization. Being a shorter objective, we were able to wake up fairly late (around6 am) and starting skinning up cascade gulch around 7-7:30 AM.

skinning up low angle terrain

On the summit crater. Mt. Shasta in the background

Shastina was a nice ski tour, no need for crampons or ice axe. I was able to either use ski crampons or skins for the entire ascent (~3,000' from camp). The only time I carried my skis was to walk around some steep rock towers to find the true summit of the mountain. We found our way to the summit, and then skied off the top.

Near Shastina's summit

We had a wonderful ski descent on corn! Super fun! We were back to camp by 1:30 PM, and settled in for a long relaxing afternoon of resting, re-hydrating and eating at camp. We were in bed by 6 PM, and tried to sleep

We woke up a 2 AM for our ascent of the Mt. Shasta west face, and were on route by 3:00 AM. It was a cool, clear evening. The snow was firm and icy, so we opted to carry our skis and boot the entire face in crampons. It was a slow plodding ascent, we reached the top of the west face around 8:45 AM. 

Top of the west face

We rested for about an hour,. We left the skis at the top of the west face, and then began the traverse along the crater towards misery hill and the true summit of Shasta (about another 1000' of elevation gain). By this time we were both pretty tired, and feeling the altitude, so it was slow going.

Looking back towards the top of misery hill

We made it to the summit in less than 2 hours, and didn't linger as I was anxious to begin skiing before noon. 

Approaching the summit

We retraced our steps and made it back to the top of the west face in about 30 min

Re-hydrating before the descent

Skis were put back on, and down the west face we went, a 4000' drop back to camp. The top of the face was steep (40 degrees) and quite icy. I was an first nervous the descent was going to suck, but we skied across the wide face and as got lower found some fantastic corn snow. What a blast! As we approached the lower third of the face we traversed way back across and dropped into a bowl on the other side of the face

Getting ready to drop into the lower bowl

We found spectacular corn snow. Wat a dream, I was giddy, so much fun! Overall it took us about 7 hours 8 hours to summit and return to the top of the west face and about an hour to ski back to camp. We rested in camp for a while, then broke it all down, and skied back to the car. We were in town, enjoying my birthday meal at the Black Bear diner by 3:30 PM. 

What a great trip! Thanks to Ted for being my partner on this great little adventure Ski mountaineering is certainly fun!