So in the last few weeks I have moved home to Mt Shasta and started my summer job. I work for the U.S Forest Service as a Climbing Ranger up on the 14,162 ft. flanks of the cascade volcano Mount Shasta. All I have to say is that the skiing is firing right now and the spring corn on the mountain is super good.
As part of my job, I spend weekends up at Lake Helen. Lake Helen is the base camp for many of the people who intend on summit Shasta. Here are some shots from life at the base camp.
At 6 a.m on Monday morning, I left the comfort of our ranger tent and my down sleeping bag with the goal of climbing up to the Red Banks, a rock outcropping at 12,400 feet. The Red Banks chutes are often the crux of the climb up Shasta and is where most of the climbers are likely to fuck up and get hurt. This is where we climbing rangers come into effect, we take the lead in the rescue operations and move the hurt climber down to an LZ so a rescue helicopter can fly them off the mountain and down to the hospital in Mt. Shasta City. After hanging out for a few hours at Red Banks and making sure everything was okay, I decided to climb up to 13,000 feet and drop in to ski the Trinity Chutes. 
The Trinity Chutes is one of the coolest ski descents on the south side of the mountain but as I dropped in on center chute it soon became apparent that the howling south wind had kept the snow super firm. I gingerly worked my way down the chute getting to the soft creamy corn where I could open it up and shred back to camp. As I said, not a bad day at the office.
Looking down from the Red Banks at four thousand feet of corn that needs to be shredded.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment