Photos by Justin Ross
We left the campground at 2 a.m., the van still holding onto the last of our sleep. When I slid the door open on the Outside Van Sprinter, the cold came in sharp and immediate, and above it the sky was already alive, stars packed tightly together, the Milky Way stretched wide. A shooting star cut across it, then another, quick and quiet, like the night acknowledging our departure.
We moved through the quiet rituals, boots, layers, skins, until we stepped out of that small, warm space and into the dark. It wasn’t until we clicked into skis at the edge of camp that I realized I’d forgotten my headlamp.
For a moment, it felt like the kind of mistake that could undo the whole morning. Go back, dig through the van, lose the rhythm, or just go.
I went.
The first stretch through the valley was easy enough, shapes barely visible in starlight. But as the skin track pulled upward into an open slope, the darkness thickened. Rhys’ headlamps carved narrow tunnels ahead, but I stayed just outside them, letting my eyes adjust, letting the mountain come to me differently.
Ascending without a headlamp stripped everything down. I stopped looking and started feeling, the shallow groove of the skin track under my skis, the firmness where others had passed, the angle of the slope pressing into my legs. Each step became more deliberate, more intuitive. At first uncertain, then steady. The mountain stopped being something I saw and became something I moved through.
The climb grew colder as we gained elevation. Wind found us in the open, steady at first, then sharper, cutting across the slope and pulling heat away faster than expected. Layers went on and zippers cinched tight, but the cold still worked its way in through small gaps, through hands and face. The rhythm of the ascent changed again, less meditative now, more about managing exposure, staying warm, staying moving. Conversations got shorter. Movement became the focus.
Altitude crept in quietly. Breath shortened just enough to notice, then a little more. The steady pace that had felt smooth lower down began to fray at the edges. By the time we were high on the mountain, the effort felt heavier, less automatic. When Rhys pushed on toward the summit, it felt right to let him go. I stopped just below, finding a small pocket out of the wind where I could stand still without getting immediately cold.
From there, I watched him continue upward, a small figure against a wide, brightening slope. The horizon had begun to soften by then, the first hints of light spreading behind him. Standing still, the altitude felt more real, a dull pressure, a reminder that the mountain was bigger than the morning had first suggested.
Above, the sky stayed bright. I found myself looking up more than ahead, catching another shooting star, noticing the faint shift of the horizon beginning to glow. It felt like moving between two worlds, one invisible beneath my feet, one infinite overhead.
By the time the darkness loosened, I had climbed most of the way by feel.
Sunrise came in layers. The summit lit first, glowing gold, while everything below held onto blue. Then the color spilled downward, pink, orange, a quiet fire across the snow. Shasta revealed itself all at once and the line we had climbed, felt rather than seen, suddenly made sense. It was almost disorienting, like being handed a map after you had already found your way.
We regrouped just below the summit. The snow was still firm from the night, maybe too firm.
When we transitioned, everything looked perfect, light, sky, the wide-open face below us. We dropped in, chasing the idea of corn we had been carrying since we left the van.
The first turns told the truth.
Not yet.
The surface shifted under us, wind-buffed and fast in one section, then breaking into pockets of crust that cracked and grabbed in the next. Edges held, then chattered. Every turn asked a question. It was not bad, but it was not easy. No flow to disappear into, just constant adjustment, attention and control.
We worked our way down through it, linking the smoother sections when they appeared, absorbing the rougher ones when they didn’t. We were a few hours early. The mountain had not softened for us yet.
Still, it did not feel like a miss.
Because the day had already happened, in the dark, in the cold, in that slow transition from not seeing to understanding. The skiing was just one part of it, not the whole.
Lower down, the snow finally gave way to full spring, soft, heavy, sun-soaked. The slope eased, the turns loosened, and the campground came back into view. Then the parking lot. Then the van, sitting exactly where we had left it, was now in bright daylight.
We skied right into it.
Skis slid to a stop on melting snow at the edge of asphalt, and suddenly we were back among people, except they were just starting. Tailgates open, boots going on, laughter carrying through the lot. Someone cracked a drink. Another group stood in shorts, soaking up the sun, talking about timing, about perfect corn in a couple of hours.
We had just missed it. They were right on it.
We did not rush to pack up. Instead, we leaned against the van, boots still on, jackets open, letting the sun settle into us. Someone handed over a drink. The snow softened around us, dripping, shifting, fully awake now. The mountain above looked calm and inviting, like it was offering something entirely different than what we had just experienced.
We sat there for a while, not doing much. Just letting the warmth take over, letting the contrast sink in, from stars to sun, from wind and cold to a parking lot full of energy. It felt like we had lived a full day before most people had even started theirs.
Eventually, the pull of the road returned.
We packed slowly, the van swallowing gear piece by piece, the same door closing on a completely different version of the morning than the one it had opened onto. One last look up at Shasta, bright, softening, ready for the next group chasing their window.
Then we pulled out of the lot and pointed north, merging back onto I-5 toward home.
