This blog is going to be about my quest to climb all the mountains in California higher than fourteen thousand feet (4267 meters for my metric friends). All but two of these are in the Sierra Nevada. The Sierra are pretty high mountains – there are around 150 peaks in the Sierra higher than thirteen thousand feet. There are only fifteen 14ers (depending on definitions). Perhaps that’s a quixotic and arbitrary number coming from our odd choice of length units; still, fifteen peaks sounds like just about the right number for me. And it gets me out doing what I love, which is hiking, camping in beautiful alpine settings, and standing on top of peaks looking down in all directions.
Let me start with how I got into this crazy business. I used to play in a band, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. We would play in Portland, Oregon pretty frequently, as you could drive up there and back in a weekend without missing work. The music scene there was pretty active, so in 2000-2002 when gas was significantly cheaper, we could count on playing for a pretty good sized crowd and selling some t-shirts and other merch and having it be worth our while.
The drive from SF to Portland goes right past the flanks of Mount Shasta. This massive snow-covered volcano (it’s part of the Cascade range) rises up dramatically from the horizon as you drive up or down Interstate 5, ever higher and higher, its bulk and height completely improbable in the surrounding landscape. The impression you get of its size is extraordinary, being a solitary volcanic cone far from any neighbors, and rising out of a pretty modest landscape. Now I’ve always been into the outdoors, hiking, backpacking, biking, etc but I was never a climber in that time. But every time I drove past Mt. Shasta I would think “some day, I’m going to climb that monster.” The guys in my band would laugh at me, “yeah right!”
Soon I picked up a copy of Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” and completely devoured it. I think “Into The Wild” had been laying around the house, and I often have phases of following an author from book to book. I was hooked. I went to the Everest IMAX movie, I read Krakauer’s “Eiger Dreams,” got a copy of “Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills” and soon enough I was going to a seminar at the local outdoor store on “How to climb Mt. Shasta” and planning a trip.
That first trip I knew very little about climbing and mountaineering. I was in a big-time backpacking phase, wanting to be outdoors at every opportunity, ditching my parents’ hand-me-down gear from the 70s for modern ultra-lightweight stuff. I convinced my friend Justin to go with me. He had a bomber mountaineering tent (10 lbs… too bomber) and was pretty stoked. We drove up, rented our gear in town, and hiked in that day to Horse Camp, near a stone Sierra Club hut. This was mid spring 2003, and there was snow all the way down to the trailhead at Bunny Flat. We camped at Horse Camp under a tree, on the snow. My first experience ice camping, and melting snow to drink. Next day we hiked up to Helen Lake (not actually a lake, except once every 30 years in the late summer – usually it’s just a nice shelf on the mountain where a few dozen climbers can camp) at 10,500 feet and settled in for the night. We dug the tent into the snow like the others around us, and built up a short tight-fitting wall around the tent to block the wind. Seemed like a cool thing to do.
That night the wind started to pick up. Soon the tent was flapping like crazy, and spindrift snow was starting to fill the space between the snow wall and the tent (not enough gap to let the wind blow it out again). The wind picked up to insane levels – the tent would occasionally catch a gust and almost flatten out. Also, we both lived at sea level. We had run up the mountain in our excitement, and exerted ourselves like crazy digging snow and building walls. I started to get sick, and soon was vomiting in a big ziploc bag. The snow was piling up, and the walls were starting to pinch in under the weight. After vomiting all night, unable to sleep in the violently buffetting tent, it finally got light and we packed up in a hurry to bail and get down. Our boots and cooking gear were buried in snow where we had left them in the vestibule, and some of Justin’s gear got left behind when we couldn’t find it under all the snow. We could barely hear each other over the wind. I was still sick and hadn’t had water or calories since the night before.
We descended only a few hundred feet below Helen Lake, and were out of the wind. Looking up, we could see the wind still lashing the upper mountain in a solid fog of blown snow. Just below, it was calm and clear and sunny. We hiked out, me with my bag of frozen vomit (which I would forget about and leave in my pack until the next week – yuck – thankfully no leaks). The weather on Shasta can be like that, keep a close ear to the climb report from The Fifth Season (530-926-5555). Back in town, I already felt great and very, very hungry. Ate a completely redonkulous meal at the Black Bear Diner. Highly recommended.
I was undeterred. A month or two later, I wanted to try again. I had a new girlfriend who was into the outdoors and backpacking (we met on a backpack trip in Henry Coe State Park, I taught her how to skip rocks). Four of us went, the girl and me, Justin and his roommate George (a tall strapping lad with a mountaineer’s build). We rented all our gear in advance, drove up and got to Shasta town late, started hiking early the next morning. This time I’m taking Diamox, an anti-altitude sickness drug that is supposed to help you acclimate quicker. It was a three-day weekend so we packed for two nights at Helen Lake and potentially two summit attempts. Everyone had an equal share of the food, tents, etc. George, Justin and I are all big six-foot guys. Lauren is petite and slender, and she tried valiantly to keep our pace and not complain but it just wasn’t to be, and I’m ashamed to admit that there were tears involved. We rejuggled the loads to something more appropriate for each person, and continued on more or less happily. Camped at Helen under clear and still skies.
Next morning I didn’t feel right. I wasn’t nauseous, not vomiting, but very very bone-tired and just did not want to get out of the tent at 3am. I figured we have two days here, I’ll feel better the next day if I spend the day at Helen acclimating. Justin and George went on without us, Lauren kept a concerned watch over me. I slept. They returned, having been up as high as Red Banks (no small feat) before being too cold and tired to continue. Sat down for a while and told us about it. I was feeling better. Then George says, well let’s get packed up and go home. A confused period follows, and it turns out that he had to be home that night despite the long weekend and a just-barely-in-range cell phone call to home from the lip of Helen Lake. Just a simple misunderstanding. I was bummed not to stay, as I was feeling pretty good by now, but cheerfully resigned to try again. Having Mexican food in town, I discover the main nasty side effect of Diamox – it makes soda taste like you’re drinking battery acid. Somehow it blocks the sweet taste and amplifies the acid; it really feels like your face is dissolving away from the horrible chemical reaction in your mouth. Takes a couple days to fully wear off. Beware.
May 2004 comes around. I’d been backpacking around Southeast Asia for three months, jogging every other day to stay in shape. I was determined to head up to Shasta as soon as I got back, solo if I had to. Got home, put all the gear together, stayed in town for the night, got a colossal omelette and plate of potatoes at the Black Bear. I’d been eating eggs all the time in Vietnam – omelette over rice with chili for breakfast, omelette sandwich for lunch – and was still wild about eggs. By the time I drove up to Bunny Flat, I was feeling a little weird. Pretty soon I was vomiting in the toilet at the trailhead. This was a weird experience – never vomited with such a full stomach before. What came out was almost a solid extruded tube. Had a distinct choking sensation as it slid out in more or less continuous cylinder. Felt a lot like what happens at the other end.
OK, enough about that. In the following weeks, every time I ate eggs I’d throw up within about half an hour. The eventual theory had to do with the fact that I’d been on doxycycline as an anti-malarial prophylaxis during my Asia trip. The doxy killed all the beneficial digestive bacteria in my gut and irritated my stomach lining. This explained the constant indigestion feeling I’d had in the last weeks of my trip. In Asia, all the eggs I’d been eating came from chickens running around loose behind the guesthouse. Back home, they came from chicken factories where the raw animal density supports an endemic and permanent salmonella population across some 75% of store-bought chickens and eggs. Even well-cooked eggs have a little residue of salmonella toxin. A healthy gut can tolerate that; my irritated gut could not. After finally finishing the doxy course (two weeks after you return home, that’s the incubation period of the malaria parasite), eating lots of live-culture yogurt, and laying off the eggs, my gut was back to normal but the snow had melted on Shasta.
Attempt #4. Spring 2005. Dan and Sam and I attempt to summit as a one-day hike, starting from Bunny Flat at midnight. I figure this might help with the altitude problem, by being done and off the mountain before it starts. Joel and Turtle come along. Things go fine in the dark until near Helen Lake – I start slowing down and just can’t catch my breath. My heart is racing and trying to break out of my ribcage. Dan and Sam churn ahead, setting a good solid pace. Joel and Turtle are far below us, going so slow we figure they’re done for. We discuss it at Helen, while all the climbers camped there are getting up and ready to go. I’m talking about turning around back to the car or waiting for Joel and Turtle, feeling like crap. Two nearby climbers hear us, and offer to let me sleep in their tent while everyone else goes for the summit. I gratefully accept, and climb into a mountain of warm, fluffy Western Mountaineering down bag while Dan and Sam go on ahead and fall right asleep.
Well, of course the inevitable happens and soon I’m vomiting red Gatorade in the snow outside those nice climbers’ tent. A couple people look pretty alarmed at the color, just Gatorade though. A nice couple makes me warm Tang (very soothing, actually!) which helps but I’m still vomiting every 30-45 minutes. I tell them maybe I need to take up another sport. The climbing ranger has a look at me and asks, you a runner or a cyclist? I reply yes, and yes. He says “figures. Guys like you train your body to ramp up to 100% every time you exercise. Doesn’t work like that up here. Most of the guys getting sick here are runners or cyclists.” He’s right – whenever I exercise, my heart rate shoots right up to its 180 bpm maximum and a similarly high breathing rate. Problem is, at high elevation, the body doesn’t get as much oxygen as it’s used to but still defaults to consuming oxygen at its usual rate. Result is that blood O2 levels drop altitude sickness follows. Climbing ranger recommends hiking very slow and steady to keep the heart rate down, where my lungs can still keep up and avoid the blood O2 drop.
Dan and Sam return hours later, completely exhausted but having reached the summit. I fill them in on the situation. I’ve been sick for hours and have barely had any fluid or calories, so I’m not feeling my best. As we are about to get moving, the ranger comes over and sheepishly says “I hate to be the one to have to tell you guys, but you gotta pack out the vomit.” Hmph. I fill a white plastic trash bag (someone’s bag liner) with the red-orange Gatorade-Tang vomit-snowcone. We start down the mountain. I’m going slow and weak so Dan stays with me. Sam takes the keys and sets a good steady pace down the mountain, dragging the white trash bag behind him. He later reports that everyone coming up the mountain asks what’s in the bag. Sam says that his answer, “some guy’s vomit,” is a conversation-stopper. Meanwhile I’m suffering along, and regularly dropping on my knees to toss another red vomit snow-cone. Lots of alarmed faces on the climbers headed up, asking Dan “He’s going down the mountain, right?” Again, as soon as we drop below Bunny Flat, I feel great and demolish a gardenburger, fries, and milkshake at the Black Bear.
Spring 2006. Syvianne, my partner at the rock climbing gym, wants to give it a shot. I give her the full disclosure about my history. This time I’m on a double dose of Diamox and am using a heart rate monitor. I set the HRM to beep if I go over 140 BPM, hoping to stay in the aerobic range at 130 bpm. We drive up late on Friday, and this time sleep in the parking lot at Bunny Flat (7000 feet) to help acclimate compared to staying in town (only 5400 feet). This time I have a good camera with me:
Sylvianne
Hiking up and watching my HRM, I realize that I usually have been hiking hard hard hard for something like 20 paces, then rest and catch my breath for 20 breaths, then again. Turns out this is the worst possible thing for me. Instead I start hiking slow and steady, backing off the pace whenever the slope increases. Sylvianne easily paces ahead of me, but I get to Helen Lake having never gone over 135 BPM and feeling great. I take it very slow and easy when digging in the tent. Melting snow takes way too long though, and it’s very dark before we eat and we run out of fuel to boot! Borrowed some from the rangers and all is well.
A guided group practicing mountaineering techniques on the slopes below Helen
Helen Lake
Sunset from Helen
Up at 3am, hiking at 4am, dawn hits us most of the way up Avalanche Gulch. We keep it slow and steady, and soon we’re through the Red Banks and looking out over a fantastic vista. Above us is the aptly-named Misery Hill, the steepest and most exposed crux of the route. Sylvianne’s hands are getting numb from the cold and she wants to turn around. My hands are toasty warm inside my double mittens. I trade gloves with her and encourage her to keep going. I figure, I’m finally doing well, I don’t want to give up now. A few minutes later her hands are back and we’re happy. We reach the flat at the top of Misery Hill, with the summit pinnacle overlooking us:
Shortly therafter we climb the pinnacle:
and I’m standing on the summit of my first 14er ever, on only my 5th attempt:
No drama to report, everything just worked. Good weather, good company. The HRM technique turned out to be a critical aid for me. Had some epic glissades on the way down. On the drive back (this is now Sunday, and we’re due back at work on Monday morning) we are so tired we have to swap driving duties every hour, then every half hour, then every fifteen minutes, then finally we stop at a rest stop and both nap for a solid couple of hours. Got home around 3am and made it to work the next day. What a massive relief to know that it’s not only possible, but when everything is going right, it’s not even that hard…
Photo gallery here
