Trip Report

The trip was postponed a week due to a forecast of poor weather (who wants to be three pitches up when the rain starts?) We could just barely make out the snow-covered slopes of Shasta in the moonlight as we drove by on our way to Castle Crags State Park Friday night. Jupiter shone brightly to the south at our 4:30 am wake-up call. Not long after our 5:30 start we stopped to layer down ‒ 2000' in three miles makes for a rather steep trail! There was a party of three camped near Castle Rock, apparently there also to climb The Cosmic Wall. But they were taking their time to get to it, so we were first-on, starting our climb at about 8 am. The views were magnificent ‒ a dusting of new snow over the old on Mt. Shasta, and snow showing on the mountains to the SW. We linked together the traditional 3rd and 4th pitches, as this can be easily done with a 60m rope, thus bypassing the problematical belay station and its manky 1/4", rusty bolt (yikes!) Sean enjoyed his first ride on the stegosaurus. We basked in the sun on top for a while ‒ it gets rather chilly at the last belay station, sitting in the shade with the wind blowing through the notch. There are now blots for the second rap station, so there’s no longer a need to sling the tree. Have we just not noticed them before, or are they new? A third party was headed up the route when we collected our gear from the base of the climb ‒ hope they had headlamps! We capped of the day with a relaxing meal at the brew pub in Mt. Shasta City before tackling the long drive back to town.