Mt. Shasta Climb-an unfinished business

Wow its been so long that i almost forgot i have this little piece of internet where i use to document my race reports for future reference. . Looking back at garmin files, 2014 and 2015 were good years in terms of cycling. I did low land double century in 2014 and Seattle to Portland double century in 2015 and few short races in 2016. But starting 2017, training and racing has been a bit off . I did few shorter road races here and there but nothing of substance. There were lot of start/stop to training due to one or that other reasons and consistency was never there. Sometimes, i lost the motivation, some times got swamped at work and at times ended up injuring myself due to lack of consistent strength training and general training.

Fast forward to late 2018, my itch to train and run well finally came back. I trained well (for most part) and was feeling very excited to run monterey bay half marathon in November. But unfortunately, on the race weekend, organizer had to cancel the race due to California fires that happened during that time. There's not much I could do so I decided to keep training and then target something early 2019. I targeted Oakland half marathon in March 2019. That race date was perfect. It was on my birthday weekend. Probably the best way to celebrate the start of new year :)

After training through early part of 2019, I was successfully able to finish a half marathon. Finally, the first one after a long time!!! after so many frustrating start/stop to training. And to my surprise, i was able to run a very solid half marathon. My goal was to do a 2:30 half but was able to run well in race and was able to finish it in 2 hour 20 minutes.

 In the past, seeing this i would have registered for several more races through the year and then would get injured. What i have realized through the years is running  the whole year is not for me. For one, i use to lose motivation half through the year and then wouldn't train consistently leading to injury and more frustration. So this year, i decided to do things differently.

After running Oakland half marathon, I decided to take a break from running. My ultimate goal is/was to run full marathon by year end but for that to happen i wouldn't need more than 5-6 months of solid training. So i targeted CIM and decided to start training for it from July.

But that decision also brought unique challenge for me. If i was not running from March to July then i had to do something. Initially, i decided to get back on biking but i was not getting motivated again for doing those long crazy rides which i use to love.

During some random surfing on facebook, i came across team asha seattle climbing website. The website said they were planning to start the program in sillicon valley. That peaked my interest !!! I learnt how to run and bike with Team Asha so it was no brainer to explore this.

Truth be told, i had no clue what climbing was. I had also missed the info session due to work. When the email for first hike came, i naively thought climbing is same as hiking. In my mind, this would be perfect for getting the muscles ready for full marathon and I LOVE hiking. So i signed up for it and icing on the cake was teaming up with Ramesh and Aparna from east bay. They also had joined the program so i had company from here. When we showed up for first hike, it was 4 miles long.

That was lot of fun. After the hike i decided to go all in with the program. I still had no clue what i am signing up for :) As weeks went by, we start going on weekly hikes on weekend exploring beautiful trails in bay area. After few weeks, I got the first taste of the seriousness. Since large number of people had signed up for the program and being the first year, climbing leads and coords wanted to limit the number of people. We all had to "qualify" for training program. Truthfully, it felt bit odd. I have being part of team asha from 2011 and none of their programs had "qualifications". The programs were run to make people fit. But i was game for it. The qualification process was simple. Climb Mt. Olympia in 2 hours 45 mins with 20 lb bag pack. I was barely able to qualify. I made it to top of Mt. Olympia in 2 hours 47 mins. I was very happy to get this qualification out of the way so i could continue hiking. I still had no clear understanding of what we are training for.

Well Hello Mt. Shasta
Few weeks into the program, on our drive to one of the hikes, Aparna broke the news to me on what we had signed up for. Since i had missed the info session, this was all new for me. But then i realized that this is not a hiking program but a climbing program and both are not same :)

Mt. Shashta from flight.

Hearing the details in one of our online meetup with the coordinator KD, I immediately realized this is completely new world for me. I was nervous and excited. I haven't felt like that from the days i started running and biking. In the hind sight joining the program without knowing anything about it was the best decision ever. I was up for the challenge. If i had known we were training to climb that thing in the picture, i would have immediately dropped from the program :) My immediate concerns/needs were

1) Tackling snow and snow skills
2) Acquiring all the gear
3) Getting basic bag packing skills for over night stay in snow
4) Getting stronger and fit for the climb

Weekly hikes took care of 4 but first three were also quite nerve wrecking for me. I have been in bay area for 12+ years but i hadn't put my foot on snow. So snow was a major concern for me. Same goes for 2 and 3. Anybody in mountaineering will tell you how big financial investment you need to make to get the right gear. Luckily, we had an amazing coordinator in KD who helped us pick the right gear for the climb. It is hilarious when i look back at those emails. Questions like, will this pants work, will this gloves work, should i buy this or that. He patiently answered all our questions and slowly and surely, i started acquiring all the gear.

On training front, our bag packs were getting heavier every week. Also, our hikes were getting longer. But being with so many amazing people made it fun. Every hike took a serious toll on my body and it always took 2-3 days to recover from it. But i also realized that i was getting fit and stronger. Week after week, we hiked several mountains in bay area.

2 X mission peak with 35+ lb bagpacks

The gang

Hardest of all hikes. Mt. Diablo with 30+lb backpacks. Ice cream at the summit was well worth the effort

Snow Skills

For me, the biggest hurdle was snow. Once i acquired most the gear, it was time to head to Tahoe to try out all the new gear and also learn essential snow skills for climbing. I did a full day snow skill session with ASI (Alpine skills international) on 4th May. We learnt several techniques to traverse the mountains 1) rest step 2) french technique 3) front pointing 4) Plunge stepping and glissading for descents. We also learnt about ice axe and self arrest technique. Well i guess if you don't want to die on the mountain, it is essential to know self arrest :) Slowly but surely, i was getting more and more confident on my snow skills. 

Date with Shashta

Finally, after all the training and hard work, it was time to finish the business. Plan was to divide the group into two groups and both groups would try to summit on different dates. First group was slated to go on 21st June weekend with Vaibhav as the guide and second group was slated to go on 28th June with KD. I and Aparna were slated to go in second group. In my last minute preparation, i decided to head back to Tahoe one more time on 15th June to refresh my snow skills and gain enough confidence for the climb. When i finished the second session, i felt good and ready for the climb. 

We drove to Shasta  on Friday. The plan was to meet KD and seattle group (Praful, Rekha, Preeti) on Saturday morning and start climbing around 10:30 via avalanche gulch route. We had plan to reach lake helen at 10,400 ft by 4:30 PM for the over night camping and then try to summit on Sunday morning at 14,179 ft and be back to car by evening.

Avalanche gulch route

As planned we met with the Seattle gang at the trail head. All the people coming from Seattle were pros who had submitted several peaks. This was a big advantage for our group. They helped us repack our bag packs the right way, removed all unnecessary stuff to reduce the weight. After all the details were ironed out and some pictures, we all started for lake helen. My backpack was quite heavy (I guess i still did not have all the layering sorted out) and it was close to 40 lb. With all the training, i was OK with the weight.  It was not a big concern for me. Slowly and surely we made it lake helen. Most of the trip was uneventful. I was fully focused on the task at hand. We took few breaks along the way and reached lake helen around 4:30ish. 

The whole group 2

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Once we reached, our immediate task was to setup the tents and start melting snow for the summit and for the way down next day. Since we were nine people, we had to get close to 45 liters of water (5 liter per person). We finished up the dinner around 9-9:30. The summit plan was to meet at 12:15 am and start at 12:30. I could not sleep for those 3 hours. I was quite nervous and excited for the summit. My body was feeling good and i was not feeling overly tired. I woke up at 12 and we all got ready by 12:30. Aparna and Sinny decided to stay back as they were not feeling well.

Summit Bid 

Due some stomach issue for one of the member we started the summit bid around 1:30. Weather was perfect in the morning. It was not that cold. The only challenge was to navigate the route in night with head lamps. 

Within 30-45 mins into the climb, my crampon came off. This made me quite nervous. I some how managed to put it back on. Initially, i thought may be i did not tighten it properly. So this time, i put proper pressure and locked them up. But within few minutes, i could feel they were getting loose again. This really scared me. Being a complete novice at this, I panicked and decided to stop and return back and just like that my summit bid was over. In the hindsight i could have handled it much better if i had thought through it. On my return trip, crampon came off again. But i was so pissed that i just took that one crampon in hand and climbed down to base camp. Once i reached base camp, i realized that the tube of my water bladder had also frozen so i had no access to water. So in hindsight it turned out to be a good decision. Our amazing group was able to summit successfully. We all returned back to our car by 7ish PM and then drove back to bay area by 1 am in the night.

Lesson learnt

I felt really really bad for few hours. This was first time ever where i turned back from a challenge for which i had put in so many hours. Once the sun came out, i met up with Aparna and Sinny and we just hanged out at base camp. Since i could not sleep whole night, i decided to take couple of hours nap in the morning. Once the team returned from the summit, i explained my crampon situation to KD and within minutes, he was able to tell the problem. The crampons were not fitted properly by the shop from where i had rented them. I could not figure that out looking at them. 

Lesson 1: Sweat the details.

I relied on rental folks for several key parts of my trip and that royally screwed me at the last minute. Along, with crampon issue, they had given me wrong sleeping bag. The sleeping bag cover was for zero degree but the actual sleeping bag within it was for 36 degree. I did not open and check the sleeping bag and i was miserable when i returned to base camp from failed crampon. I could not sleep and kept shivering till the sun came out. Although, on the phone they mentioned that they would be able to rent me crampons for my mountaineering shoes, they turned back at the last minute and i was forced to rent mountaineering boots from them. This was quite nerve wrecking as i was very use to my shoes and last minute shoe change could have caused giant problems for me. Luckily, rented shoe worked out OK. Big lesson learnt. 

Lesson 2: Build the fitness

Mt. Shasta was only third time on snow for me. To some extend i under estimated the strength and endurance required for it. Having experienced it first hand, i knew i would have struggled coming back to car if i had summited that day. Mt. Shasta is hard climb. It is no joke and requires really strong preparation. 

What next

If you made it to here then congratulations :) Like i mentioned, the whole climbing thing happened like an accident. But now that it is behind me, i am back on marathon train. I have signed up for couple of half marathons (San Jose Rock n Roll and Monterey Bay half) leading upto CIM in December. For a change i am really looking forward to train hard for December marathon. Good thing is i am going into it with lot less variables and hell lot stronger body :)

While on the mountain, i kept telling Aparna and Sinny that snow is not my thing and how stressful this whole experience was for me (I guess that was all knee jerk reaction for all things going wrong at the last minute). But once i returned home and gave it a good thought I realized that being able to get upto 10,400 ft in itself was such a big achievement for me and i am really grateful to Team Asha Seattle chapter, especially KD, Suhas and Deepti  to introduce this program in bay area and train us for it.

All said and done, i still have unfinished business with Shasta. I am looking forward to train harder and get on that mountain summit in 2020. 

Mt. Shasta, we are still not done !