“Never stop climbing mountains.”

When my girlfriend Katie said those words to me, I knew she was the one. 

Of course there’s more to the story, and she didn’t just mean literal mountains, and there are many other reasons she’s the one for me...but when she affirmed a major passion in my life, when she basically said ‘I will always support you in doing things that make your heart come alive’--that pretty much did it for me.  We were married just over a year later.

Fast forward to this past May, when her birthday gift to me reminded me of that statement: a summit permit for Mount Shasta, 14,179 feet tall.

This northern California volcano is a fantastic climb; I climbed the Avalanche Gulch route back in ’99 with my buddy Eric Moore and have longed to go back.  Trouble is I hadn’t climbed in awhile and had gotten out of shape.  Oh yeah, and I have a pretty busy touring/recording/leading worship schedule.  So this gift was also a challenge to prioritize my time and energies towards my passions.  Did I mention I have a fantastic wife?

So...after joining the gym, working out for a couple months, finding a couple other guys that were interested in going, gearing up at REI and the Fifth Season (in the town of Mt. Shasta), we headed into the wilderness on July 23 for a few days...

My buddies Sean Conklin (who served in the Marine corps) and Josh Remy (Army chaplain) from Bayside Woodland went with me; these are some tough military dudes, so I knew it would be a great time.

We started at the Clear Creek trailhead (elevation 6400 ft.) and hauled our 45 pound packs to 8600 ft.  It took us about almost 3 hours.

We set up camp at a treeline base camp (8600 ft.) near some natural springs.  These springs were important because they were the ONLY water source from the trailhead to the summit.

Try lugging this around on your back for awhile!

The natural springs; this water was so good!

We went on an exploratory hike up the mountain a ways. High altitudes can mess with you (shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, nausea, etc.), so it’s a good idea to spend a little time letting your body adjust.  They say to climb high, sleep low to give your body time to acclimatize.

Our afternoon hike gave us the chance to scope out the terrain and get some time at altitude.  We went up above 10,000 feet that afternoon.

I had heard about some tent sites at 9500 ft. and wanted to check them out for future climbs.  I like to shorten summit day and therefore try to camp as high as possible.

Tent sites at 9500 feet.

This site would be great with an abundance of snow close by to melt for water.  Without snow, this spot is just too far from a water source to be practical in late season.

Treeline Base Camp 8600 feet

Tent Sites at 9500 feet

We descended, had dinner, and went to bed at 8 PM.  Why on earth would we do this?  Because on mountains you want an extremely early start.  The rangers predicted about 10 hours for the climb up (!) and 5 hours more for the climb down. We lay there staring at the tent ceiling, hoping for sleep.  I slept about 30 minutes total before my alarm went off at midnight. 

We got and ready and hit the trail about 1 AM.  Our headlamps lit the trail as we climbed through the darkness.  It’s hard to get pictures of this part of the climb, which is too bad, because I think it’s one of the most spectacular parts of the experience.

We slogged up thousands of feet of scree (loose rock and sand). 

It’s brutal because you slide down a few inches on every step. 

About 8 am we made it to ‘mushroom rock’ (12,800 ft.).  Just as a reference, by that time we had ascended the equivalent of more than 3 Empire State buildings!

By dawn at 5:45 AM we had climbed to over 11,000 ft.

Then it got interesting.  We had been on scree all morning, but now it got steeper and looser.  Anything we touched moved...downhill!  Stepping always included sliding back down a little ways.  It took hours to get through the steepest part, scraping and clawing our way upwards.

Sean and Josh were both feeling the effects of altitude, but they would absolutely not give up- they were as determined as I was to reach the summit.  We reached a plateau below the summit where we crossed a patch of snow (our only snow on the climb) just before ascending the summit cone.

A few more steps up switchbacks and at 1:10 PM we were on top! 

It was pretty awesome looking down at the clouds.  Smoke from wildfires limited our view, but we still had some extraordinary views of the surrounding area.

The Summit 14,162 feet

I made it!

Sean and Josh on top!

Signing the summit registry...

The steep section of scree...

The descent took another 6 hours, with a lot of slipping and sliding on scree (it sure is easier going downhill though!).  We rolled into camp about 7 PM (an 18 hour summit day!), had dinner, and crashed.  I slept pretty good that night!