Trinity Alps Winter Crossing

Tom Stienstra of the San Francisco Chronicle just wrote a great story about three Mount Shasta area guys who just crossed the Trinity Alps in winter from Big Flat to the Canyon Creek Lakes trailhead in eight days:

The expedition started at a location so remote and snowbound that it took a helicopter drop to get them started. In the next eight days, they climbed and descended 8,500 vertical feet while crossing the Trinity Alps and its formidable Sawtooth Ridge – including in blizzards that dumped 2 feet of snow and set off multiple avalanches in their paths.

Who Are Those Mount Shasta Area Guys?

I’ve met two of ’em, and it’s such a small area up here where we all live that I’d likely recognize the third:

*Ray Pettengell

*Dennis Campbell

*Chet Kyle

What Was Their Trinity Alps Wilderness Route?

Started at Big Flat by Coffee Creek
Hiked to Lower Caribou Lake
Cross-country along the Sawtooth Ridge to the gap between Caesar Peak and Thompson Peak
Down the ridge to Canyon Creek Lakes, and then out Canyon Creek valley to their car at the trailhead

I’ve hiked to all of these places, some multiple times, and the Caribou Lakes and Canyon Creek Lakes are prominently featured in 100 Classic Hikes in Northern California. Of course, I did all that in summer…

Hats off to these guys, and read Tom Stienstra’s article for the full skinny on how they did it.

The expedition started at a location so remote and snowbound that it took a helicopter drop to get them started. In the next eight days, they climbed and descended 8,500 vertical feet while crossing the Trinity Alps and its formidable Sawtooth Ridge – including in blizzards that dumped 2 feet of snow and set off multiple avalanches in their paths.