Shasta and the Midlife Crisis.

Climbing changed my life and specifically climbing Mt Shasta on July 14, 2002. To be sure, other things have changed my life to a greater extent but not in the same way.  I climbed Mount Shasta on my fortieth birthday with the precise intent to shake things up. I had seen Mount Shasta hundreds of times. On the rare day that it isn’t smoggy, you can see Shasta from the Sacramento River valley, and you see it from Klamath Falls, Oregon, and I lived in both. Mount Shasta was omnipresent for many years of my life and I had also read John Muir’s Snow Storm On Mount Shasta.  Gripping stuff.

Mount Shasta as seen near base near Brewer Creek. Google image.

The recommendations and stats for the route are:

1. Mt Shasta - 14,162 feet, it has four glaciers, the only glaciers in California.
2. There are several routes up Mt Shasta but no trails ascend above 10,000 feet
3. Our route, the Brewer Creek Route starts ~7,000 feet, most on snow.
4. The route crosses a small section at the top of the Hotlum Glacier.
5. The climbing season is early to mid summer as the scree beneath the snow is unstable.
6. It is recommended climb start before 2 AM so you ascend before the snow slushes up in the afternoon.
7. All Shasta climbs require ice axe and crampons
8. All Shasta climbs require an understanding of self rescue.
9. A thousand or so people climb it every year. Hundreds of thousands climb fourteeners.

 Some stats and info about myself and climbing team.

1. All but one of the climbers were part of my family and included Doug (brother), Katie (niece), David (nephew), William (brother), Rebecca (William’s girlfriend), Sam (brother), Michael (nephew), Aubrey (daughter), Randy (brother in law), and me. The group spanned a range of ages, the youngest was Aubrey (14) and oldest was Doug (46).
2. I was nearing forty and feeling out of shape because I was out of shape.
3. Prior to the trip nine of the ten climbers had never seen an ice axe except as a door handle to an REI. I organized the trip and I was one of the nine.
4. Self rescue requires the use of ice axe and crampons. See 8 above.
5. I was living at sea level in California, I spent most of my teens in Arizona, and I was born in Utah. All but one of us lived at low elevation and we didn’t have time to acclimate.  

We practiced self rescue here. 

If you live in Arizona, California, or Utah, and you are at all outdoorsy you carry a pocket knife for all manner of uses. Uses could include carving a spoon, cutting a bagel, spreading cream cheese, removing a splinter or in rare instances one may need to amputate their own arm if it gets stuck under a rock. It happened before in Utah and Utah is where I was born. Aaron Ralston’s amputation story doesn’t relate to my Shasta experience directly except to inform the reader that climbers in Juneau perceive wearing crampons and carrying an axe as a common place experience much like carrying a pocket knife anywhere else.  I had never been to Alaska prior to our climb and in my mind that gear was the stuff of serious National Geographic. This was 13 years ago. Little did I know that ice and axe and crampons are pretty easy to use. 

In my 39^th year I simply felt out of sorts like though my life was good, it seemed much of it was not my choosing. I spent the first 25 years of my life in a fairly religious setting and obedience to leadership the “First law of Heaven.” That works great as long as the direction you want your life to go lines up with the direction your leaders want your life to go.. Religious leaders held the rudder to my life in my early years.  In my mid twenties I abandoned religion but didn’t completely figure out how to grab the rudder for myself.  In my thirties I kept thinking about Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote, “I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” That’s a pretty hefty statement by Ole Hank when you think about it.  Live deliberately. Does anyone really do that? I sure as hell wasn't and I am still working on it now.. So there is the back story. 

 Mount Shasta with Brewer Creek route.

As my fortieth birthday approached I wished to live deliberately. If you are thinking that this might be a tale of a guy in a midlife crisis, you could very well be correct. That’s what mid life crises are about.  Somebody, usually a man, makes an attempt to live deliberately that often ends with the consequences of rash decisions.  The crisis victim looks around and clearly understands that he never chose the life he's living and time is running out to change course. Crazy and dumb things can happen but great things as well. There is truth to a midlife crisis because quite honestly most people aren't half a free as they think they are. Women ought to have them as well.  I wasn’t looking to get a young girlfriend and I was too poor to buy a sports car but I figured I could learn to be one of those people that look cool standing on icy summits. Understand that in my naïve mind, the basic act of using ice axe and crampons placed me on the pages of National Geographic. People from Alaska and Canada can laugh but that is how it's perceived. I was that uninformed! I had no idea that the tricky part in this case was organizing a  trip that ended having a lot of moving parts and very little of the work actually happened on the mountain.

The story actually started six months before the climb when I emailed about 50 people in my contact list with this message. “I am going to climb Mount Shasta for my fortieth and if you want to join, let me know. My b-day is July 14” That email was a snowflake that started an avalanche.  About 75 people responded. People really do want to climb and my email offered something new and interesting. Note 75 is more people than I sent the message to but that didn't bother me. I figured the more the merrier, though I should not have thought otherwise. Mountaineering parties are best small even simple mountains like Mount Shasta.   It started out for me as an exercise in learning basic mountaineering skills and dealing with a group that size wasn’t what I bargained for.

 Google earth generated path of the Brewer Creek Route. 3.7 miles one way, 7,000 feet elevation gain.

Yet, this expedition expanded. We all rented gear. My brother in law walked into gear rental shop in Mt Shasta City and said, “I want to rent some clampons and I’m going up the Beaver Creek Route on Mount Shasta.” My sister about died of laughter. There is no such thing as clampons and there is no Beaver Creek Route on Mt. Shasta. They rented him gear but I wager they kept his credit card number so they could recoup the cost of the gear if he killed himself on the Brewer Creek Route.  With similar level of ignorance I faced the problem of leading a large group of people.  Fortunately I learned of my predicament months in advance and the RSVPs rolled in. I ended up placing much of the planning on each individual. I let people know the meeting place, the time, what equipment was needed, where to get it, and what to expect, to the extent that I knew. 

As it turns out about 30 people showed up to Mount Shasta, most of them with no intent of climbing. My parents showed up, three of my brothers showed up and each of them brought people, two of my sisters showed up with their husbands and kids, and I showed up with my Evonne and my kids. Everybody made a hefty effort to get there as none of them lived nearby. Doug and family came from Alberta and most of the rest came from Arizona. We played guitars around big fires and ate food and sang songs. We spent July 13 at the base and we spent about two hours practicing self rescue. In the afternoon we met three guys carrying skis that turned back at 12,000 feet due to lightning that raised  hair on their arms.  We only heard of it in the distance and temperatures at the base neared ninety degrees. Those intent on climbing woke up at 1AM July 14 and started up the trail at 1:30. We soon found that charging uphill can make you sick if you live at sea level. At about 9,000 feet Aubrey felt like vomiting. This was about where the trail fizzles out. Aubrey turned back down the trail. Yes, it was dark still and somebody should have gone with her but she acted like it was no big deal. Aubrey has a tendency to act like stuff is no big deal even when it is. It’s a positive trait most of the time. She arrived in camp at 6 AM.

I apologize to Aubrey but I can't change it now.

The rest of us headed onto the large perennial snowfield just north of the Hotlum Glacier. A snowfield differs from a glacier in that it may disappear once every century or so. This means it doesn’t move downhill and doesn’t have crevasses or seracs.  At about 10,000 feet the sun started to rise and with the sunrise I witnessed and felt the entire atmosphere turn pink and orange. Alpine glow (pronounced alpun) is caused by low angle light like a sunrise hitting snow or ice which reflects in all directions, including back to the snow.  Because the angle of the snow is low, the light isn’t intense like midday; the net effect is that you feel like you are inside the light, like you can breathe light. This was my first experience of alpine glow and I was hooked. I have sought alpine glow ever since like a junky’s jones for cocaine.

The view from about 11,000 feet.

Near 11,000 feet we encountered a section of ice on the snowfield. This was about 8 AM. Rebecca felt a little unsure on her crampons as did most of the rest of us. Doug had used crampons a lot and I think he chuckled at us a little under his breath. We probably deserved it but we really didn’t know that the icy patch was no biggie. Rebecca and Sam turned back. I am pretty sure Sam turned back because we were far enough uphill that Rebecca shouldn’t return alone. The rest of us continued up mountain. The ice diminished soon and we continued to plod upward.

Plod is the correct word. My sea level  and out of shape lungs couldn’t get enough oxygen. You can’t get pulmonary edema at 14,000 feet even if you live at sea level but you can get a nasty headache and you will get tired faster than you normally would if you are not acclimated to elevation. I took some ibuprofen and plodded on, taking many rests and eating a lot of sugary food. We reached the summit around 2:30 PM. Bear in mind that we reached 10,000 feet at sunrise at 5 AM. It took us 8.5 hours to go from 10k to 14k and it was only 2 miles on the ground. Serious plodding.

Katie Reese (now Oviatt) ,Michael Peterson, David Reese, Carl Reese, Doug Reese, William Reese.

Photo by Randy Mckinnon.

Yet, 7 of us climbed the mountain. We looked around. Randy successfully climbed his first fourteener in clampons. We started our descent about 3:30 by the same route we ascended. Since much of the route is snow we glissaded from 13,500 feet to 8,000 feet in about twenty minutes. During the glissade I encountered a steep section that raced off to some penitentes, ice points that form on snowfields at high altitudes. The two hours of self rescue practice paid off and I stopped before I got there.  It was the best glissade I have ever experienced. I became addicted to glissading that trip as well. These addictions may kill me. Cocaine.

Michael Peterson, David Reese, Carl Reese,

Katie Reese (now Oviatt), Randy Mckinnon, William Reese,

Photo by Doug Reese. Dig my aviator glasses. I think I still own the hat.

The non climbing folks at base woke up around 7 and watched us with binoculars until 11 and then went to a swimming hole on the McNeil River for the afternoon.

The climbers got back to base around 7 PM and though I had been eating all day, I was absolutely starving but more than that I was exhausted.  All thirty of us went to a Mexican restaurant in the little town of Mount Shasta City and the food was awesome. I briefly nodded off and woke up just in time to stop my face from landing in my enchiladas. Exhaustion overwhelmed me.I have little doubt that most of the climbers on this trip could make it faster and with less exhaustion even we are all 13 years older. I needed better sunglasses. My eyes hurt from the sun on snow even though I wore sunglasses. I fell asleep at 8:30 and slept like the dead until 10AM the next day. They had to roust me for checkout time at the motel in Shasta City. 

Yet, it was a perfect day, everybody was awesome, and nobody got so much as a blister.  So the story ends we are told.

The following summer I was asked to help on a salmon survey on the Scott River, California. As I drove up the Scott Valley I rounded the top of a hill and Mount Shasta came into full view. I was struck with intense emotion and broke out laughing to the point that I had to pull over.  Mount Shasta still creates strong emotions. Somehow the experience changed me. I think it provided me with some confidence that it is possible to grab the rudder on the ship of life and steer yourself. Live deliberately. That experience had a huge part of my moving to Alaska and a huge part of climbing another mountain and another. I joined a community of hundreds of thousands of climbers and most of them live deliberately.

Mount Shasta as seen from near Scott Valley.There is more snow here than when we climbed. The Brewer Creek Route on the viewer's left ridge  Base camp was about where the snow starts in this photo. 

Often that thing we think is a huge bugaboo…  isn’t. Unless it actually is a huge Bugaboo. Learning to use basic mountaineering gear is no more difficult than learning to wear sandals or tie your shoes and I am pretty sure that applies to lots aspects of life as well. Many things seem difficult because they are outside our range of experience. I still need to learn Spanish. 

 Like most people, I didn’t know that most new things are not as hard as they seem. That is the core of the life changing experience for me in mountains.The human race is rife with people that get stuck in a rut waiting for something to happen and making excuses to stay in the rut for a whole bunch of bullshit reasons.  Often people die waiting for somebody else to give their lives direction. People are obsessed with obedience and conformity. I got a tattoo to be a non conformist but I waited until everyone else got one. How's that?  I know way too many people that admit their lives are punctuated with boredom and loneliness yet there is no way to convince them the rudder is right there and it isn’t that tough to steer.