Our group of 6 climbers and two guides summited Mount Shasta at 7:40 a.m. on Sunday morning, after 6 hours of climbing the Avalanche Gulch route. We spent roughly 8 months fundraising, 5 months training, and in the end, raised $25,100 for BCM and got 6 climbers to the summit, a big metaphor for the kids on our summer program trips (which, coincidentally, started going out in the field this week).
Our group included:
Jessica, from Arlington, Va., (originally from Chicago), who also summited Mount Rainier in 2007 with Summit For Someone
Zach, from San Francisco
Jayson, from Denver (originally from Burlington, Iowa)
Robb, from Denver (originally from New Hampton, Iowa)
Steph, from Denver
SFS Climb Coordinator Brendan, from Denver (originally from New Hampton, Iowa)
Natalie Matveyeva from Shasta Mountain Guides
Jason Champion from Shasta Mountain Guides
We spent two days slowly working our way up to our high camp at about 10,000 feet, waiting for good weather — Shasta was intermittently covered in clouds, rain and snow throughout the first day of our trip. Our guides decided to take us up a different route than originally planned, as the Avalanche Gulch route is easier to navigate in bad conditions. Sunday morning, we were up at 12:30, climbing through a whiteout by 1:40, and on top by 7:40. After a few minutes enjoying the sunny summit by ourselves, we plunge-stepped and glissaded back to Horse Camp and hiked out to the trailhead by 2:15.
We couldn’t have asked for a better group of climbers and guides to hang with for three days. Click “Keep reading” to see some photos of the climb.
You won’t hear many people recommend bicycling as training for mountaineering — it’s not very similar to hiking uphill at high altitude with a pack on your back. But it’s how I get to and from work (and the grocery store, and the library, and dinner with friends, and coffee shops, and REI), and I am not a gym person, so it’s my twice-daily opportunity to get some exercise before and after sitting at my desk in the BCM office, getting flabby all day.
So for about three and a half minutes every morning on my way to work, I hit this hill, in Cheesman Park, and I pedal as hard as I can. I’m usually wheezing and gasping for air by about 2/3 of the way up it, legs burning — not unlike the feeling of trying to hike up a high-altitude ridgeline or snow slope. It’s only 115 feet of elevation gain over a half mile, but on a bike, you can never beat a hill. You can only get up it a little faster. Keep reading →
Our Longs Peak climbers had a conference call with Jill Salva of the Colorado Mountain School last night, and Jill was, of course, full of useful information. One of my favorite tips she shared was pretty simple and obvious, but I think something most of us might not think of when it comes to mountaineering: Start packing a week in advance of your trip. Less stress, fewer forgotten items, no hassle the night before you have to get on your flight trying to cram one more piece of gear in your pack.
If you’re like me, you don’t have a guest bedroom — I start piling everything I need on one spot on the floor of my apartment. You’ve probably got an extra room in your house that you can pile gear in for a week. It’s nice to go through everything with a checklist in hand to visually confirm you have everything you need. If you do all of this well in advance, there’s no panicking — even if you suddenly realize you’ve lost your headlamp, there’s time to borrow one, or order another one.
If you need a gear list to print off for your SFS climb, here they are:
We just found out about this video through SFS climber Stuart Smith’s Facebook page — I believe it was shot and produced by Jason Richter on last year’s Mount Rainier 1 climb. If you’re looking for 8 minutes of video to get you excited for your 2009 SFS climb, I think this is it!
Not Brent Okita -- three of the guys on one of our 2008 SFS Mount Hood climbs goofing around on the summit.
Brent Okita, Veteran Senior guide for Rainier Mountaineering, Inc., has guided for RMI since 1986, and has 363 summits of Rainier under his belt, as well as 17 straight summits of Denali. So he knows a thing or two about being in good shape in the mountains. Brent has written “Physical Fitness – A Guide’s Perspective” on the RMI web site, and as he explains:
Whether my goal is preparing for Everest or simply keeping this middle-aged body together – I think I have “the best” plan for training for climbing big mountains. And it’s simple.
For RMI’s full Physical Fitness & Conditioning guide, click here.
Shasta 1 climber Jed Matcham e-mailed me to let me know how his fundraising is going — he’s a firefighter with the Benicia, Calif., Fire Department, and enlisted his co-workers, Ric Netro and James Ensley, to climb Mount Shasta with him this summer. It appears they’ve hit a fundraising goal mine with a pretty simple raffle idea: Sell $5 raffle tickets for a chance to win $500.
Jed said he personally has collected $3,000 so far, and wrote:
I bought 2000 tickets online at www.kwiktickets.com for under $100 and had them in my hand within a couple of days. They are custom printed, and very professionally done. They are very easy to sell! We collected enough to cover the $500 prize in the first day. We will eventually sell between $9,000 and $10,000 worth of tickets, enough to make sure that all 3 of us reach our goal! We are just selling face to face, and have had great success going door to door in residential as well as commercial areas, and standing in front of the local store works well also.
SFS climber Matt Alberti in the Lincoln Journal-Star
In Denver, where our main BCM office is located, lots of folks climb mountains. But not nearly as many do it for charity. And in lots of places our climbers come from, it’s a very unique endeavor. We’ve seen quite a few of our climbers in their hometown newspapers, or on news web sites, as of late. Here are a few of them:
We got a bunch of boxes shipped from JanSport this morning, piled with Summit For Someone T-shirts for all our 2009 climbers. We’ll try to start getting them in the mail as soon as possible, along with a bunch of other “thank-you” gifts.
I was somewhat consulted on the design of the T-shirts, and all my input was, of course, ignored, and we ended up with maroon shirts instead of the Kelly Green I voted for. I think it’s better that people don’t listen to me when it comes to fashion matters.
If you’re climbing with us in 2009, e-mail me your T-shirt size ASAP!
While Summit For Someone is a fundraiser just like the Race For the Cure, we can’t exactly ask our participants to show up in a pair of running shoes and some shorts and expect them to do well. With the help of a bunch of sponsors, we’ve put together a pretty good system to outfit SFS climbers.
SFS ‘09 sponsors include:
Mammut, who provides Tripod helmets (modeled by Chris El-Deiry in the BCM office) and other gear. Glacier, Alpine Rock and Expedition climbers will all receive a free Tripod helmet as part of their gear package.
Kyle coming down the courthouse steps. (Photo by Aaron Picar)
Here’s the first idea that combines fundraising and training, courtesy of SFS Mexico Volcanoes climbers Jordan Duncan and Kyle Gerecke of Cape Girardeau, Mo.
This account is courtesy Kyle and Jordan’s friend, Aaron Picar:
A couple good friends of mine, Kyle Gerecke and Jordan Duncan will be climbing the 18,410-foot Mount Orizaba and 17,158 “Ixta” in Mexico to raise money for Big City Mountaineers. Keep reading →
Our Longs Peak climbers had a conference call with Jill Salva of the 
