Ascent of Shasta - West Face

Stumblebum

I have tried Shasta 6 times and succeeded 3 times, but for the first time from the West Face route, this 4th of July weekend.

Mountaineering requires constant movement and breaks are once every hour and are busy as you have to adjust your gear, sip water, eat, pee, and then if you have a chance, take some shots. Well, that is my excuse for doing sub-par job anyway. Value might be the view from the top from one of the most beautiful and majestic peaks, part of Cascade Volcanic Arc.

Always appreciate helpful pointers!

1) View of Mt. Shasta from Lake Siskiyou



2) Fireworks on Lake Siskiyou for 4th of July



3) Base Camp sunset before climb next day



4) Alpine start at 2:00am, early morning break



5) View of Casaval ridge on left, most technical route on Shasta



6) View of Shatina lit up by morning light behind lead climbers



7) Some climbers are cuter than others



8) Glacier on top of Misery Hill, about 13.5K



9) Climbers at the Peak



10) View from peak, looking at South Side



11) View from peak, looking at North Side



12) Cloud moved in on North Side



13) Snow field on top of Misery Hill



14) Back at base camp



15) 14 hour day justifies crashing early

Earache

Very enjoyable series SB
That's not an often seen venue for fireworks.
The images have a sort-of retro, Ektachrome look - nice!

kdog

Terrific travelogue, SB. What an adventure. I love the journalistic flavor of this thread. The photos are great and really give a sense of what it was like to be there. The view from the top is to die for. Those sleeping arrangements didn't look too comfortable.

Congrats on a successful trip.

Stumblebum

Earache wrote: »

Very enjoyable series SB
That's not an often seen venue for fireworks.
The images have a sort-of retro, Ektachrome look - nice!

Thanks Eric. Its a learning process as I have never tried my hand at fireworks and the only available ambient light was fireworks itself. I found out that if I use smaller aperture, then everything was sharper but I had to expose longer in order to get some background besides just fireworks. However, that caused the fireworks themselves to be too hot. So I tried different combinations and tried to keep ISO low and 20-30 second exposure gave balance between fireworks and background. The one I posted is one I thought was better of the bunch, although I was surprised my f was 2.8 on this one and that was something that didn't seem to be working at the time as it was too hot. I guess better situation would be to have some ambient light besides fireworks. My hope was to get something crispy and crispy fireworks reflection, but that didn't work.....YET.

Stumblebum

kdog wrote: »

Terrific travelogue, SB. What an adventure. I love the journalistic flavor of this thread. The photos are great and really give a sense of what it was like to be there. The view from the top is to die for. Those sleeping arrangements didn't look too comfortable.

Congrats on a successful trip.

Thanks bro! Hauling the camera up was not as much fun. However, my hope is to combine extreme outdoors with photography to highlight something different. The high temperature we have been getting had melted most of snow but enough was left to make this trip possible. However, from this route, this was probably the last climb of the season. On our way down, couple of giant rocks, size of car tires, ran few feet away from us as in the evening sun bakes the snow and it becomes soft and unleashes rocks.

Any advice or tricks you can point out, will be appreciative. As I said above, its a learning process, and hopefully I can get a shot or two that is worth everyone's time!

Earache

Stumblebum wrote: »

Thanks Eric. Its a learning process as I have never tried my hand at fireworks and the only available ambient light was fireworks itself. I found out that if I use smaller aperture, then everything was sharper but I had to expose longer in order to get some background besides just fireworks. However, that caused the fireworks themselves to be too hot. So I tried different combinations and tried to keep ISO low and 20-30 second exposure gave balance between fireworks and background. The one I posted is one I thought was better of the bunch, although I was surprised my f was 2.8 on this one and that was something that didn't seem to be working at the time as it was too hot. I guess better situation would be to have some ambient light besides fireworks. My hope was to get something crispy and crispy fireworks reflection, but that didn't work.....YET.

Be sure (if you haven't yet) and take a look at the great group of fireworks images posted in the OCS forum after the 4th.
Lots of different venues and EXIFs to study for technique.

BTW - my parents climbed Mt. Shasta before I was born, but I didn't inherit their adventurous natures - I get dizzy looking out 2nd story windows.

Qarik

2 and 14 do it for me. you 3-7 could use a bump in exposure plus warming up..too much blues due o the sky

Stumblebum

Qarik wrote: »

2 and 14 do it for me. you 3-7 could use a bump in exposure plus warming up..too much blues due o the sky

Hi Qarik/Guru/Daniel, thanks for feedback! I was hoping to capture icy cool morning in 3-7 so went in other direction, but will definitely try to bump up exposure and warm them up.

rhituraj

Very nice series!