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About meClimbing Shasta
An interesting read: In 1878 a man climbed Mt. Shasta and stayed at the summit for nine days. An early experiment in high altitude acclimatization. (Of course there were Tibetans living at higher altitudes than that, no doubt, but you know.) B. A. Colonna of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey writes:
On the 24th of July we left Sisson’s Hotel to make the ascent. The day was a delightful one, and we were all in fine spirits. The outfit which I proposed taking up weighed 750 pounds, and had to be packed from the snow line to the summit on the backs of 20 stout Indians. Besides the packers there was the usual number of squaws, papooses, and lean dogs — the indispensable impedimenta of Indian braves. If there is anything outside of these household chattels that a brave in this neighborhood prides himself on it is his linen duster and jaunty straw hat. The former, to be stylish, must reach to within 6 inches of the ground, and for the latter a broad blue or red band is most desirable. Nearly every one in the party was mounted, and it was a somewhat noisy company, in which the voices of the braves and squaws were mingled with the crying of papooses and the barking of dogs, so that no one sound was clearly distinguishable. Our route was over a beautiful smooth mountain trail, which at first wound about in splendid forests of sugar pine. . . .
While up above the treeline, the researchers found some red snow, colored by abundant “microscopic fungi”; they of course tasted some of it—for science!—and learned that it “had decidedly a fruity taste; but none of us agreed as to what it was like. Sisson thought it resembled the flavor of ripe pears, while to me it was watermelon.”
You know, one of the first things I do when I find strangely colored snow is stick it in my mouth. Oh wait, that’s not me, that’s my 6-month-old daughter. (At least I’m assuming that’s what she’ll do when she sees snow for the first time.)
The trip ends with a glissade down a snowfield where Colonna barely escapes with his backside intact:
Looking back, I could follow with my eyes the tract I had made in the snow, and away up toward the place where I had started I saw my gunny sack. In the keen enjoyment of my ride I had not missed it, but a preliminary examination satisfied me that I had lost not only the gunny sack, but the seat of my trousers, and I congratulated myself in having escaped so easily.
I enjoy reading about snowy adventures while stuck in the muggy heat of Tokyo.
(Photo courtesy Deb and Dave on Flickr)
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