I have always been fascinated with multipitch technical climbing. The idea of being couple hundred feet off the ground, reaching impossible places and fantastic views absolutely thrills me.

 

Turns out, the Pacific Crest Trail passes by Castle Crags, a forrest of old granite eroded into jagged pillar. Among these crags lays a beautiful adventure climbing route up Mount St. Hubris, Cosmic Wall. This route allowed access to the top of this teeth like pillar and a peek into the unexplored depth of the rock formations. Without saying, this adventure has my name all over it so I was a hundred percent in on making this happen.

The plan

To make this happen, I needed a little help since I can’t just throw on a backpack and walk up the slopes with my trail runners. I needed professional help.

After a brief search, I got in contact with the guides at Shasta Mountain guide (http://Shastaguides.com), who were more than excited to help a PCT hiker make adventure happen. Also, since a guide can take two people up, I also recruited Lost to go on this adventure with me.

After much struggling around with dates, we finally decided on doing the climb Thursday.

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and had no idea if we were going to be able to do this climb because we don’t hike with climbing shoes (of course) and we have no idea if the gear store, Fifth Season, has our sizes for rental.

Lost of Lost

Turns out, Lost had monster size feet. Size 14 you unfortunately don’t find at a small town rental but I was very surprised to find a few shoes around my size, 11-1/2 to 12. There was a lot of options so as long as you are not Lost, you should be good.

Unfortunately this means Lost can no longer join me on this adventure. 🙁

Uggh that’s super unfortunate since I lost a previous adventure buddy and more importantly, a photo subject hahaha 😀

Anyways, I was still super stoked and finally went to meet the awesome people at Shasta Mountain Guides and my guide. His name is Joey, a laid back bloke in his twenties who has definitely seen his share of adventure. He talked about climbing and the outdoors with passion and was more than excited about doing the climb tomorrow. We talked a bit about logistics and then parted ways till tomorrow.

The start of this adventure

The next morning, I woke at 5:30 after not so much sleep and set off to meet Joey after sneaking by my sleeping companions. We decided to meet at the local Cafe to grab a coffee and breakfast to start our day right. After a nice coffee and a big breakfast burrito, we got in the car and quickly set off for the short drive to Castle Crags State Park.

Joey was friendly and talkative and the trip quickly started to feel like just two friends going out for a day instead of a professional guided trip. The relaxed environment plus how excited I was about this might very well explained how we pulled into the trailhead parking lot and I realized I left my backpack at the cafe.

So we made the drive again, with surprisingly the same level of excitement as we stopped to retrieve my bag. I embarrassingly stepped into the cafe, now full of patrons, to grab my backpack and make a quick exit. A hour later than planned, we started hiking at 8:15.

The Approach

And we paid for the delay. The approach was much more than simple, at 6.5 miles round-trip with 2500′ of elevation gain, it was no cake walk. By the time we broke through the tree line at 9 am, it was already very very hot. Still, Joey and I made great pace, one veteran mountain guide who climbed Shasta 30+ times and me with 900 pct miles behind me. We sweated prefusely and crushed that approach in no time.

The views on the way up was incredible by itself, castle crags was teasing through the thick pine forest as we got higher, giving us glimpses into it’s spires every so often, urging us to get there. On the way, Joey told me stories of Shasta and Castle Crags, especially taking the time to explain the myth of 9 foot ancient humonoid creatures living in the center of Mount Shasta.

He also frequently talk about how incredible Castle Crags was. Usually, granite erodes smoothly in a circular shape, for example, half dome in Yosemite. Somehow the rocks here, eroded in this fashion, left behind jagged spires. There’s a forest of spires looking to be explored other than cosmic wall and he always wanted to spend more time here, exploring and climbing the tall, intricate spires.

We left most of the elevation behind and eventually left the trail and started swimming. Joey called it swimming because near the top of the approach was a thick forest of manzanita bush that we had to struggle through. I only had shorts from hiking and this part left all kinds of red lines across my legs. Although I didn’t feel a lot of the pain as excitement is a great pain killer. Soon, we left our approach bags behind and arrived at the start of the climb.

After reviewing some techniques and commands and doing our safety check, the long awaited climb begans.

Little explanation of how this works. Cosmic wall is a multipitch traditional climbing route. It means one person leads a pitch, putting in protection by jamming especially designed mechanical devices into cracks in the wall and slinging cords around trees, rock horns and etc. Once the person finishes the pitch by reaching an anchor point, the next person is belayed from the top as he climbs up to the same anchor point. The process then is repeated and sometimes, the lead climber is switched. In this case, Joey will always be the leader because I am definitely not qualified to do that part.

The start of the climb

Belaying and watching Joey go up the first pitch, I was nervous. I was actually worried about being able to make it up this route. I was definitely anxious for my part to start and it felt like it was taking forever. Well, granted it was because the first pitch was indeed a long one, about 60 meters up. I was bursting with excitement when Joey finally called me to climb.

As soon as I stepped up, all the anxiety fled away. I found myself gripping hand holds and moving up the foot holds almost naturally, sometimes not even thinking much. Half way up the first pitch, I got stuck for a second looking for a way to advance myself. There was almost no footholds! I found myself halting to a stop and staying in one position, looking for a way up. It was so exciting as I looked for the solution to this puzzle in my head and delicately stepped on a lump in the smooth rock face and pushed up, trusting the rubber to hold. It felt amazing being able to move past that section and I flew up the rest of that pitch in great time.

The next pitch was short and sweet. It involved going over a few small overhanging features but the rocks are jugged with plenty of holds. At this point I was absolutely loving it. After getting the feeling of climbing again, it felt natural. Just handhold, foothold and repeat. My breathing was calm and I actually felt relaxed.

After we settled at the next anchor point, Joey explained that we are about to do the hardest part of the whole climb.

Right above the archor point there was a section of smooth steep rock with almost no visible footholds and very little handholds. Joey explained that you had to smear your foot on to the rock after finding the tiniest feature and put your weight on it. He of course walked up it like it was no big deal and soon after, it was my turn. I got up a few feet off the ground and realized this was definitely harder than it looks. Both of my feet felt like they were going to slip and I had no idea what to do.

Then it happened, my left foot slipped and I went tumbling down towards the platform. It happened so quickly. I remembered I noticed the gradually tug from the rope, a weird spatial awareness of the platform and the rocks around me as I fell and landed on the big shrub that grew on the other side of the platform.

The first thing I did was shout up “I’m okay” because Joey was belaying out of sight and I didn’t not want him to worry. The second thing was to realize how scary that was. The rope made sure I had a gentle fall as the dynamic rope takes away force slowly with its stretch but falling backwards towards rock was definitely scary. I slowly gathered myself and started to try again. This time, I for some reason it was a lot easier. Maybe the fear of falling was taken away now that I have fallen. Still, I had to use all my strength and concentration just to make sure I didn’t slip off. When I finally made it through that part, I let out a long breath and a shout of excitement.

At this point, the view is already incredible. You can see Mount Shasta in the distance and the ground far far below. I sat at the belay station, comfortably lounging and enjoying the sights as Joey climbs the 4th and 5th pitch.

The fourth pitch was the hardest but I cruised through it, only getting stuck a few seconds on one section where I had to move between two walls on a corner. It was no easy task climbing a few hundred meters of steep rock and I was definitely feeling the effects on my body. What pushed me on though was the thought of doing the fifth pitch, the most exciting one where we walk on a knife edge ridge towards the summit.

The Summit

That pitch was magnificent and thrilling at the same time. Walking on a knife ridge was probably the scariest part of this climb but also the most exciting. I felt myself trumble in fear and adrenaline as I carefully balance myself to move across this knife ridge.

The views from the summit was beyond incredible, everywhere you look, pinnacles of rock spouted out in the distance, forming this weirdly alien scene.

This moment was probably the most incredible moment I have felt. The accomplishments of fighting away my fears and worries and scaling a steep rock wall made standing on this summit platform all the worth while. Looking at the views around, I can’t help to think how I am one of the few people who are fortunately enough to gaze upon this and that made the views even more special to me.

I couldn’t help to feel a bit of vertigo as I try to move around, slightly unsure of my footing as I try to absorb all of the view. Main while, Joey started to set up the anchor for our repel down the mountain.

He patiently explained how repelling worked and how because the anchor is at the summit platform, you had to slowly lower yourself to a repel position. I guess I did a terrible job.

 

Jk.

If you are interested in going on a rock climbing adventure, give Shasta Mountain guide a call and they will set you up on this incredible adventure, you don’t even need rock climbing experience as they definitely guided up people who never climbed before. I know I had a blast and I would definitely not hesitate to go on a trip with them again!

Http://shastaguides.com