Rick's World

Mt Shasta - Hotlum/Wintun Ridge - June 26-27, 2009

Drew and I had such a great ski last weekend that when Rick mentioned he had Friday off and would like to ski Shasta (he missed last week due to a meeting) and jumped at the chance to make one more trip! With a couple days on our hands we decided to camp on the mountain. It was a great trip, met up at the Hi Lo Motel in Weed, headed up the mountain to an amazing camping area, great skiing still above 10k, lots of suns (and suncups), a great dinner at Vivify in Mt Shasta City (who would have thought, great Organic Japanese food in Mt Shasta), and finished it off with a little relaxing at the Stewart Mineral Springs!

Rick packed for a week :)

This camping spot at 9600' is simply amazing. Flat, soft ground, and beautiful views. It would be the perfect place to land the alien spaceship.

Moon over Shasta

Heading up

And skiing down! Great summer corn!

Labels: Ski Mt Shasta

Hotlum-Wintun Ridge - Mt Shasta

Got a call last Monday from Drew who was up in the PNW, good looking weather forecast, reports of smooth snow above 8500', and positive beta from ASI's newsletter and my friend SMG guide David Marchi so we decided to take a shot at Mt Shasta this weekend. The forecast headed down hill a bit by the end of the week, chance of thunder showers Friday, Saturday night, and Sunday but Saturday still was "mostly sunny" so we decided to make a one day push up the Hotlum/Wintun Ridge Route.

The day started out looking promising:

But clouds started coming and going:

And eventually it looked like this:

After ~5300vf we decided to turn around at the point where the route crosses the ridge and makes a steep climb to the summit.

Drew and I took video of the ski down which I'll try to edit and post soon. The top 2500 feet or so was perfect, smooth corn, some of the best I've ever skied!! The snow transitioned a bit down lower but still wasn't sticky at all and great to ski. The last 800 feet or so was a bit sun cupped, but Drew still gives it a thumbs up! It was about 1000 foot hike between snow line and the car.

Shasta once again delivers!

Labels: Ski Mt Shasta

Mt Shasta - Hotlum Wintun Ridge

Drew and I returned to the Hotlum Wintun this year, one of the nicest ski routes I know of. With a cold night and low freezing levels forecast for the day, we decided for a later then usual start, left the cars at 7:45. We were able to park within 1 mile of the trailhead and cutting through the woods came upon the trailhead in about 10 minutes. The amount of snow seemed very similar to when we skied this route on July 3rd last year! Temps were cool and there was a consistent breeze, things didn't really seem to be softening.

We reached 12,500 feet at around 1:30 and things hadn't softened much. The route gets steeper after crossing the ridge here so we decided to hang out for a bit and see if things would warm up. No dice, after an hour or so it seemed to be getting colder if anything so we decided to head down.

The top 2,000-2500 feet was pretty firm, filling loosening skiing. Around 10,000 feet the skiing got pretty good and the lower turns were very nice. Perhaps we should have just lapped down lower :-)

Hitting tree line, the route right in front of us