Re: Shasta Conditions?
Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 9:14 pm
mrchad9 wrote:clmbr wrote:I'm going back in a couple of weeks to climb North Fork.
North Fork?
Yes the left side (split) of upper Whitney Glacier.
Climbing, hiking, mountaineering forum
http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/
https://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/shasta-conditions-t57563-75.html
mrchad9 wrote:clmbr wrote:I'm going back in a couple of weeks to climb North Fork.
North Fork?
RickF wrote: A softball sized rock hit one member's foot causing him to fall and slide a few hundred feet before he could self-arrest. ... No serious injuries but during the slide both crampons displaced. One crampon came apart and the slide-adjusting bar was not recovered.
clmbr wrote: You should always anticipate rock falls but sometimes it's hard to avoid being hit even if you see it.
RickF wrote:Nice pictures Climbr & MtnDonkey, My group (3 skiers + 3 booters) made two attempts to summit last week. We turned back on both attempts.
First attempt was via Clear Creek with overnight gear on Monday, June 27. We got some rain overnight, no big deal until early tuesday morning when gusty winds blew the precipitation under our rain-flys. After everyting got wet; clothes, sleeping bags, etc. we bailed. We rented motel rooms, dried out our gear, checked the weather and re-grouped.
On Friday, July 1st we made a second, single day attempt via Avalanche Gulch. We started at 2:00 a.m., made good progress to 11,000 feet. The rock outcrops at the Trinity Chutes and the Red Banks were coated with rime ice and as soon the sunlight made contact the barrage of rock & ice fall started. (We were all wearing helmets and trying to stay to the right of the gully) Then two members of our group got pelted by rocks. A softball sized rock hit one member's foot causing him to fall and slide a few hundred feet before he could self-arrest. Sunlight was not hitting the snow in the gully yet so the snow was hard & fast. No serious injuries but during the slide both crampons displaced. One crampon came apart and the slide-adjusting bar was not recovered. Although we were at 11,800 nearly past the zone of the worst ice/rock shower we opted to turn around and descend. The silver lining was the fun ski run all the way to parking lot at Bunny Flat.
RickF wrote:clmbr wrote: You should always anticipate rock falls but sometimes it's hard to avoid being hit even if you see it.
Climbr,
We certainly anticipated some rockfall. We had read reports from last year's similar conditions and we had a lengthy visit with the Rangers in town. We were well informed, we had helmets, we were avoiding the center of the gully and we were all vigilantly watching and calling out "Rock" not only to those in our party but the other parties on the route as well. It just got to be more intense than we felt was worth the risk. From around 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. rock & ice was being shed not just from the Red Banks, straight ahead, but also from both the left and right sides of the gully.
Hela wrote:One life was lost during the storm:
http://www.redding.com/news/2011/jul/01 ... mt-shasta/
RickF wrote:Hela wrote:One life was lost during the storm:
http://www.redding.com/news/2011/jul/01 ... mt-shasta/
Hela, Thanks for sharing the link to the article. The educated guess was that the woman had succumbed to hypothermia. The Rangers also mentioned that the two people became disoriented and were unable to get back to their camp. We parked very near to where the people in the article were parked. The Rangers also informed us of the recovery mission when we told them we had been up on the Clear Creek Route in the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday storm. Their car was there before we arrived on Sunday night and it was still there on Tuesday at 3:00 in the afternoon when we left. We didn't see any boot tracks or any sign of anyone else on the Clear Creek Route as far up as the common Base Camp area at 8,200 feet. The article doesn't say when they started their ascent or how far they went. The article is also a little misleading because it says the man returned to his car at the Clear Creek trailhead, but the road was blocked by snow drifts a little over 3 miles down from the actual trailhead. We didn't experience any new falling snow at our relatively low elevation. The Rangers told us that the snow level got down to about 9,000 feet. In my opinion it's harder to keep warm when it's 40 degrees and wet verses 20 degrees and snowing.
Hela wrote:RickF wrote:One life was lost during the storm:
http://www.redding.com/news/2011/jul/01 ... mt-shasta/