Mount Shasta - Avalanche Gulch
Ray, Scott, Paul, I and went to Mount Shasta over the 4th of July weekend in 2006. I'd never done the regular route on Shasta before and wanted to give it a go. For Scott and Ray, it was their first time mountaineering so Paul taught them some basic techniques that they practiced. Avalanche Gulch is a good first time climb because it's relatively easy and doesn't require much experience. We got a late start the first day and arrived at 50/50 camp (9400 ft) at 1915 hrs where we promptly set up camp and started preparing for the summit day. We left at 0215 hrs, headed up and were back by noon. Glissading down from the Red Banks was somewhat sketchy since the snow remained fairly icy even at mid-morning; I had to carefully control my speed because it was easy to fly out of control.
