Trip Report

Wanted to just share a trip report for anyone going up in the next few days. In terms of avalanches - we did not see any signs of instability until about 1:45pm, about 2/3 down WF, where we were in a de-risked zone, but could easily trigger wet looses (they just didn't go anywhere). It would have been too late to be descending at that ponit. 

Otherwise - 

Shasta Trip report...

Started from BF at 2am on 5/12 up Avy Gulch. Compared to 5/20/23 ascent, the snow was softer the entire way up. Stuck to skins til the last 200 ft below Helen lake, then added ski crampons. Removed ski crampons at Helen lake and skinned up another ~3-400 feet before transitioning to boot packing to the bottom of Misery ridge. With the recent storm covering up most avy debris, plus a good freeze-melt night or two, extremely low wind and good temps - these were the most glorious conditions ever. You gotta go ASAP, as things will melt. Last year, misery ridge was rocks. This year, Misery ridge was corn skiable at noon and completely filled in. In general, the mountain is the most filled in I've seen it during spring ski season. We descended the west face with 1 additional on-the-mountain friend, and didn't see many others doing this. As this was my second year skiing Shasta (last year, Avy Gulch descent), here are some of the things we really did right this time: 1. Keeping skis on our feet, and ski crampons in our packs, as long as possible for maintaining energy levels. 2. Ate and drank about 2x as much, on an hourly schedule for nutrition and 15 min incremental sips on my Skratch and felt incredible. Applying triathlon fueling to ski touring is a game changer. 3. Less timing stress! Last year we had to side slip the first 500 feet of ice given our fears of late descents. To each their own, and each day has its own unique safety risks, but this time we really waited. We descended West Face at 12:30pm and it was light snow with easy turns from the very top! Remember the west face takes a little longer to get soft than AG. After about 500 ft of a few inches of soft turns, we hit true corn, and had about 2500 ft of what truly felt like groomed corn. Incredible. No problems on the traverse back to AG, but I would expect that in a week or so, there will be quite a bit of rock exposure on the traverse. Thick and heavy slosh to the car, as expected. Was Absolutely perfect!