Two hikers from Salt Lake City had a close call on Mt. Shasta this week after a missed turnaround and a wrong turn forced them to spend an unplanned night exposed to 15-degree weather.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office received a distress call at 10:20 p.m. on Monday, October 12. A 19-year-old male and 20-year-old female were underequipped to safely wait out the night at their location, about 11,000 feet up Avalanche Gulch. They’d begun their day at 4 a.m. at the Bunny Flat Trailhead with no plans to summit, alongside a male companion who did plan to summit.
Their route was dangerous from the beginning: Avalanche Gulch’s terraced scree ramps are loose and crumbly without snow and ice to consolidate them. Along with that advisory, the pair had also ignored a recommended turnaround time posted at the trailhead. Officials said they had reached their highest point at Red Banks, located at 12,800 ft., around 5 p.m., five hours past the posted turnaround of noon.
Now separated from their companion and stuck in rapidly-dropping temperatures with inadequate clothing, they followed officials’ advice to keep descending to maintain body heat.
The group again contacted emergency services at 2 a.m. to report that they had reached Helen Lake at approximately 10,400 feet. Shortly thereafter, their phones died.
Rescuers scrambled in a first-light operation involving air and ground operations. Ground searchers and air crews with CHP Air Operations first scanned the upper reaches of Avalanche Canyon. Around 9 a.m., they located two hikers, who turned out to be unrelated to the search and in no need of help.
On the ground, crews tried another approach. Beginning at Horse Camp, a large cabin at 7,880 ft. on one of the mountain’s most prominent trails, which the hikers had already passed on their way up, they descended into nearby Cascade Gulch.
While rescuers didn’t necessarily think Cascade Gulch was the most likely place to find the missing climbers, searching it was a matter of diligence, Nick Meyers, program manager for the Forest Service’s Mt. Shasta climbing rangers and avalanche center, said.
“Cascade Gulch is a common place for people to end up if they get lost on Avalanche, but it’s usually only when the trails are covered,” Meyers said. “When trails are exposed like they are now, you can just follow the main drainage to hit any of the trails back to Bunny Flat.”
However low-percentage, the decision paid off. Rescuers in Cascade Gulch heard shouting around 4 p.m. Soon they had located the two hikers, who were uninjured and managed to descend safely with help.
According to rescue crews, the hikers confirmed they had passed Horse Camp on their way down. How they got lost from there remained unclear.
“The trail from the cabin to Bunny Flats is a superhighway,” Meyers explained. “It’s the baseline recommended day hike for anyone of any experience level on that area of the mountain, so it’s really well-marked and very wide. We’re still scratching our heads about how they missed it.”
It’s unclear whether the hikers ever re-established contact with their companion, who did make it safely off the mountain without incident.
The rescue follows multiple similar incidents on Mt. Shasta during the past month. One badly injured hiker was airlifted from Horse Camp on Sept. 11 after attempting a glissade at high altitude, injuring his feet, and crawling back down most of Avalanche Gulch. And three young hikers endured a long rescue in early September after using AI to plan their summit bid via the Clear Creek route.
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