Anyhoo, Jeff H. and I arrived in Shasta City the evening of 25 May 2000 and had dinner at the Black Bear Restaurant. Our plan was to bivy at Bunny Flat, and hopefully get a little skiing in before dark (impossible, due to our arrival time, but that's what headlamps are for). We arrived at the mountain at approximately 6.30pm and loaded light packs: bivy sacks, bags, a little water, the usual. We skinned up over suncups to just above the ridge on the west side of Bunny Flat and dropped our packs. Jeff H., an unabashed teleskier, with unabashedly squeaky boots and bindings, got the first "tracks," if you could call them that, down from camp into the bowl. Myself, properly attired in randonee gear, as God intended, promptly attempted to "saw" (rather than carve, which was impossible on the frozen, wavelike terrain) an incredibly shallow turn out into the middle of the flat. The snow was truly miserable. After sliding around in the dark for no more than 10 minutes, Jeff H. and I headed back up to our bivy site, kicked off the planks and hit the hay.

At 6.30am Jeff H. and I got up, broke our little camp, then again attempted to ski down the frozen bowl like a couple of idiots. Jeff H. got a lot further than I did, since he pulled off the skins, which I elected to leave on. I slid about 20 feet on the icy cups, then tried to skin downhill for about 100 feet. Didn't work. So I booted it down to the lot. Jeff H. did an aggressive and impressive snowplow at severely alternating rates of speed for about 100 feet until he suddenly crashed to a skidding stop on his hands and bits of head and knee in the middle of the bowl. He's a young guy, so he can take this sort of abuse.

Jeff H. and I threw our gear into his Honda and drove back down into Shasta City for a quick breakfast at the coffee shop on Main Street. While there we saw Bob Noyes, known to me from our previous volunteer search and rescue operation for John in late-April. We spoke briefly and Jeff H. saw a story in the local paper about the operation to remove the chopper from the upper mountain that had crashed there in an attempt to search for John.

Jeff H. and I ate and drank up, then headed back up to Bunny Flat to meet Jeff Keeney (Jeff K.), Bruce and Em. Jeff K. arrived around 9.30am and we began to get gear together. Bruce and Em advised us that they would be at Bunny Flat some time in the morning, but told us that if they weren't there by 11am to go ahead and head up the mountain and that they would meet us at Hidden Valley or elsewhere en route. We waited until 11am, left a note for them, and headed up.

The shot above was taken at Bunny Flat and shows the mountain from the south, with Avalanche Gulch featured prominently in the center of the mountain, and Casaval Ridge, which I had partially climbed as part of the search and rescue effort in late-April, to its immediate left. The Cascade Gulch route is to the west of Casaval Ridge. Our high camp was on the rock of Peak 9487, which is the large, dark bump at skyline left. The route up there is a slog and a half and includes some Really Stupid and Dangerous Traverses Due to Avalanche Potential. But we were cool. Can't say I was never spooked, particularly coming across the very exposed upper portion of Anaconda Gully, a 30-degree slope and textbook case of an avalanche waiting to happen, at midday nonetheless, when the snow was nice and warm and wet. But we were cool. We were cool. We made camp around 4pm, taking it easy on the way up.