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Climbing Mount Shasta

Short Cuts

By: Michal Warzecha - 9/2000

Part 5: Misery and Football Fields

After 9:00 am our trek resumed with a trudge up Misery Hill. Helen Lake was long behind us, and I now glanced back to watch Red Banks sink below. Misery Hill is appropriately named. It is a featureless heap of rock that torments would-be summiters of Mt. Shasta. As you are trudging up the hill, with your breath stolen and your mind damped by the thin air, you picture the summit being at the top of the heap. In the end, cresting is very disappointing. As Steve and I huffed our way to the top of Misery Hill, we caught our first glimpse of Northern California's lofty summit. There was a ¼ mile stretch of flat snowfield between us and our goal. Although a ¼ mile is not very far, at this altitude and after climbing about 4,000 vertical feet, the distance seems immense. We knew we could not give up, and began walking across the field.


Looking at Shastina from the top of Misery Hill


Looking down from the snowfield

The walk on this football field of snow is rather interesting. Before you at the end of the field, stands the summit pyramid of Mt. Shasta. It's an old volcanic plug that rises several hundred feet above the field. At first glance, the plug seems impossible to climb. The face in view is sheer and covered with rim ice. To the left of the field is the carved valley of the Whitney glacier. The snowfield drops off precipitously onto the glacier. Gaping crevasses stare at you, along with a view of the Shastina summit far below. To the right are the valleys of the west face, including the deeply carved Mud Creek valley.


Crossing the "football field"

As Steve and I crossed the football field, the wind howled past us. It reminded me of a Michigan winter. Without our extensive clothing, we would have been hypothermic in a matter of minutes. The air temperature was hovering around the freezing point, but the wind-chill created a feeling of bitter cold. Even the trudge across the field is not without effort --- battling the wind required additional strength. We eventually reach the base of the summit plug. I had a feeling that no matter what, we would summit and achieve our long sought goal. Dog-bites and bronchitis be damned. My throbbing calf had been reminding me of the attack throughout the climb. In some sense, I had a feeling of spite in that the beast did not prevent me from being here.

At the base, we decided to leave our packs behind. The final push is a trail up the plug from the aft face. We never touch the impossible, rimmed shear wall. Buoyed by a feeling of impending success, we slowly marched up the plug. Even though the hike is very short (only a few hundred feet), the air is thin and anything faster then walking speed leaves you winded. The trail can hardly be called a trail. The path is through loose ash and rock, interspersed by ice. Walking is treacherous, but we were not about to let that stop us. We gambled with the weather and so far it had paid off. Throughout our wanderings near the summit I had kept my eyes on the sky. My biggest worry was navigating back to Red Banks if a whiteout had occurred. With strong winds and no visibility, it would be all too easy to stumble down the wrong valley. I told Steve that the moment the weather deteriorates, we would be making a beeline for Red Banks. The worry proved unnecessary. For the first time during the climb, the Sun shined.


View from the Shasta summit

After all of our obstacles, we finally reach the summit! The area is barely able to support all of the climbers resting there. It is a set of plug pillars with a narrow trail winding between them. In the middle of the sprawl of collapsed climbers is a large iron box containing a register book and several momentos. I signed the book for both of us, and examined the momentos inside the box. They included an action figure and a discolored photograph of a man in military uniform. The photograph looked about 30 years old. Looking at it, I pondered about the story behind the photo, and why it was here.


The weary team on the Shasta summit

I then decided to begin photographing our accomplishment. We scrambled up one of the plug spires and asked another climber to photograph us. It felt great to have achieved our goal. It all began with a hike at Grouse Ridge and culminated in a summit of a California Fourteener. Soaking up the views from the summit is exhilarating, but at some point, one must turn home. After snapping more photos and pondering life, the cosmos, and our true insignificance to the forces that created this awesome mountain, Steve and I turned around. Now began the most dangerous segment of our journey. We struggled two days to reach our goal, and now we had to reverse our course. Most climbing accidents happened on descent.