This was my first successful summit where I felt like I had actually properly climbed a mountain. Mount Shasta is located in Northern California, not too far from Redding. It is a volcano in the Southern Cascades Range, and reaches to a height of 14,179 feet. It looks more impressive than that, however, as it isn't surrounded by anything nearly as high.

I went with a guide named "Magic", who was in the process of starting his own guide service and was doing some test runs with people he found on Craigslist. It was expected that 4-5 people would have been coming, but apparently I was the only one who actually followed through. No complaints from me, of course, as Magic was a really cool guy who definitely knew his stuff. He has done the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, which partially inspired me to do the PCT myself. Planning on doing that in the spring of 2010.

The climb itself was awesome. It had just snowed a fairly significant amount in the week or 2 prior, and Mount Shasta was pure white with snow. We went up the lesser travelled east side of the mountain, which is usually a lot of loose rock, but is ok to do in the snow. We camped one night about 3/4 of the way up, and then set out early the next morning to summit. Apparenly, Magic got some pretty severe altitude sickness at the 99.5% mark, and he told me to go ahead without him. About half an hour late, I was at the summit and had a big smile on my face.

I took a few minutes to enjoy the view at the top, snapped a few photos, and then went down to the volcanicly active hotsprings just below. Took a couple minutes to play around that area, and then went back to find Magic still suffering a bit.

On the way down, we got to glissade quite a bit, which is really quite fun. It's basically sledding without a sled, and is a lot easier than walking.

All in all, the trip was awesome, and everything went as perfectly as could be expected. Many thanks to my fantastic guide, Magic!