Day 2 - Helen Lake

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence.  I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.  I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life”—Leo Tolstoy, “Family Happiness”

A clear breezeless morning awoke me, and in cold, I carefully sorted and packed for the snow-climb to Helen Lake.  Timberline was just a few hundred yards up the slope, and its steepness would increase as the day progressed.  I packed so that things I might need—mitten-gloves, ski mask, goggles and snow shoes—could be retrieved without laying anything on the crusted snow where they could easily slide all the way back to Horse Camp.  Crampons biting into the crusted snow, ice axe in one hand, ski pole in the other, I started up Avalanche Gulch.

Looking across Strawberry Valley
 and the Sacramento River
from just above Horse Camp 

The snow had a crust, caused by melting during the day, then freezing at night.  I had reluctantly brought snowshoes because some advisors said the crust could break through in the afternoon descent, leaving half my body beneath the surface with no way to proceed.  But for now, crampons prevented sliding, the crust prevented falling through, as I trudged up the slope.  

Lenticular Clouds

Lenticular Clouds

Before the sun came over the ridge, a strange swirling of clouds began to accumulate over the summit.  I watched them spin around it, tornado fashion, but without the darkness of a tornado.  It was my first sighting of lenticular clouds since arriving in Dunsmuir, and I remembered the warning—lenticulars indicate high wind on the summit, and climbing is not advised.  But I would not go to the summit today, and from where I stood, angled to the slant of the peak, wind was light.  

As I climbed higher, temperature lowered and thawing had clearly lessened with elevation in the preceding days, which caused the snow-crust to become thin.  Then I fell through up to my knee, and again up to my waist.  I considered the snowshoes strapped to my pack, but also assessed the steepness of the slope, great enough now that I was traversing up at an angle, rather than going straight up as I did earlier.  I did not think I could traverse such a steep place in those floppy snowshoes, having never used them except on gentle slopes.  

The Cabin at Horse Camp

Mt. Shasta Town in distance

I am not one to act quickly or make changes without thinking for some time.  So I sat there in the snow and looked down on the cabin of Horse Camp, zoomed in on it for the right picture, and considered the town of Mt. Shasta in the distance, from where I took pictures of this place yesterday morning.  It seemed that perhaps I was in a place of drifted snow where the base under the crust was soft, allowing the crust to break easier.  If that were true, I could work up closer to the ridge and find snow with a harder base and a more stable crust.  The plan worked, and within fifteen minutes I was traversing near the ridge, quite proud of having solved a problem.  

I met a man, coming down as I was going up.  He looked strong, trim, and in good spirits.  “Did you make it?” I asked  “No,” he said.  “ Wind?”  I asked.  “No, a perfect day.”  I asked no more, but said that few people even think of trying.  He did not want to talk, and I watched him continue down the slope.

I cannot say it is beautiful up here.  The views from below had convinced me that rock, ice and snow were the total experience, and now I was getting what I expected, but up close.  And with the temperature rising above freezing, it was like a damp religious place with nowhere to sit except on damp snow, and the wind like the sound of prayer, of my father kissing me and sending me off for the first time to Longfellow Elementary School, and I felt a bit homesick.

“A beauty not explicable is dearer than a beauty we can see to the end of”—Emerson

Campsite prepared by someone

Helen Lake is just over the rise

I figured I was near Helen Lake when I happened to see human tracks leading to a strange digging on a flat place to my right.  On investigating, someone had dug a shelter in the snow, built a snow wall against the wind, and had camped.  Did they carry a shovel and move all that snow just for a one-night stay?  I rejected it at first, because the base camp for reaching the summit tomorrow was Helen Lake, everyone had told me that—that frozen, snow-covered flat place, which had to be just up and over that rock outcrop you see in the right picture.

Making water from snow

Making water from snow

But this place was close to Helen Lake, and if I slept here, I would be alone.  Something about the stark emptiness of this isolated place seemed in conflict with groups, with meeting other climbers, the giving and receiving of advice, the telling of stories.  So I laid down my pack and set out to make water from snow.  

My camp below Helen Lake

My camp below Helen Lake

After resting, and with plenty of daylight, I climbed without the heavy pack up to Helen Lake and looked down on my sheltered campsite, still surprised that someone had exerted all that energy to make it.