Mt.shasta - Pacific Crest Trail

imported
#1

Has anyone side tripped to Mt. Shasta and climbed it? if so, where did u mail supplies to? know of any angels in the area? any info helpful. Thanks for your time

tracy j. calvert

#2

A good place to hitch to Shasta from the PCT is from Castle Crags State Park (Castella, CA). Milt Kinney’s daughter used to help out PCT thru-hikers in the area, but the last time i went through there ('05), I heard nothing about her. (she used to shuttle PCT thru-hikers to Shasta to climb) You could call the Postmaster in Castella to inquire about her. (that was her contact person - when a hiker asked for his/her maildrop, the Postmaster gave her phone number) Good luck!

Shasta

#3

Mt. Shasta city has a P.O. and full re-supply, and, of course, a great view of the mountain! Mt. Shasta is WELL worth the side-trip and hitch off of the PCT from Castle Crags at Hwy. 5. This is not the easiest hitch but the right person will come along who is travelling straight there. You can get a permit to hike Shasta at the ranger station in Mt. Shasta city.

Smack

#4

Climbing Shasta was definitely one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip for me.

It costs kind of alot (like 60 bucks), but there is an outfitter in Shasta City that rents axes, crampons, plastic boots, helmets and anything else you might need to go up. We had long since mailed our axes home and didn’t want to deal with having them sent out again, so renting was a nice option. The climbing permit is 15 bucks and, yes, someone checked it when we reached the base camp. We took the Avalanche Gulch route up which was nice for us as it was not much more difficult than what we did in the Sierras. We spent the night on the mountain at 10,800 at Helen Lake (base camp) and started climbing at 2 or 3 in the morning. The wind up there is pretty intense, so I’d reccomend a solid 3 season tent at least, a tarp would be inadequate IMHO, though someone in our group did use one. Due to our early start and thru-hiker level of fitness we had the summit to ourselves for a good half hour or so before anyone else got there. It was awesome, I definitely reccomend it if big mountains and lots of snow don’t scare you.

Snail