There was no summit, of course. Around 12,500', we found ourselves upon a rock face. Given the poor visibility (~30', blowing ~50mph, ice everywhere--shells, glasses, beards and eyebrows...) I thought we were almost 1000 feet further up the ridge than we were, and so was reluctant to go--sans sight and rope--west around the abutment--thinking it to be the false summit--into the crevasses of the Whitney glacier. (We at the 11th hour opted against rope.) Nor were we interested in contouring east around the false rock on the face and lee (avalanchey) slopes. And, so, with conditions being what they were, our perceived options for continuing not exciting us, the time of day, and a worsening pain in Yossi's knee, we bailed around 12,600' at just after noon.
_Very_ exciting time, though. Damn ski patrollers teaching me enough to be paranoid of avalanches, but not enough to know when I don't need to be. Every wind-rush through my helmet was a release, every icy strap slap was a crack: I was a nervous wreck. I'd never continued up in blizzard before though, and everything else aside, that fact itself was immensely satisfying at various levels. I do wish that the weather had been something other than what it was: perfectly blue while we approached, turning worse and worse (much, so that we noticed some other parties bailing) as we got up the mtn Saturday, then clearing just as we finished digging our snow cave, blizzardy just as we readied to leave for the summit in the morning, and by the time we were back down to 10K' finally clearing over the entire mtn.
I re-messed up my thumb, Yossi's knee isn't perfect. But neither are too bad. A small number of gear failures (camel-backs leaking, stove melting at poor angles into the snow) that we have to deal with and learn lessons from, but just as many sweet surprises (our new twin boards proved decent, my new saw is a beautiful thing.
The descent, though nice on the steeper upper colder slopes was somewhat lacking in that "Freedom of the Hills" one seeks in snowboarding, what with 50 lb. packs and wet-as-Hell snow and following the wrong drainage too long and so incurring a 2 mile walk back to the TH. But I was quite taken by the scenery; I'd had no idea that Cascade Gulch was so picturesque--only between 20 and 100 feet wide, flanked at times with trees or small bright bluffs, great snow coverage and little chutes everywhere. It was really a new side of Shasta for me, and not just geographically. And good snow and aspect or not, we take these last glimpses of the season as we can, so precarious and precious and all the more adored for their shortcomings.
