Mount Shasta | Climbing the West Face

While most people go up Avalanche Gulch, we took a seldom traveled route to the summit, the West face. This route starts at Bunny Flat, but traverses West toward Hidden Valley. From Hidden Valley, it's a simple route, just go straight up the West face until about 13,200 ft. then traverse across to Misery Hill and tag the summit. The disadvantage of this route is that it is longer by a few miles, and you camp about 1000 ft. lower at Hidden Valley than Helen Lake. However, the payoff is you are away from the crowds, and there is an awesome ski decent down the West Gulley. While we had great snow coverage, the route proved to be more difficult than we thought. The snow started getting punchy on us, and what began as a relatively easy climb up a 30-45 degree snow slope turned into a slog. Also, because very few go up this way, we did not benefit from an established boot pack. Nevertheless, the mountain was amazing, and, besides an issue with my ski boots that required me to walk almost the entire way down, it was a great route for this looking for a challenging ski mountaineering line. I guess what they say is true, "The summit is for the ego, the journey is for the soul."