The Historic First Winter Ascent Of A 14,000 Foot Peak, Mount Shasta, 1856

[gore galore]

THE HISTORIC FIRST WINTER ASCENT OF A 14,000 FOOT PEAK, MOUNT SHASTA, 1856
by gore galore

The pursuit of winter mountaineering in the modern sense is one of time parameters and certain rules as such to determine a winter ascent. But in mid 19th century mountaineering winter time was much less defined as it encompassed winter like conditions to those who faced the uncertain elements with courage and perseverance and primitive gear to be called a winter ascent. This dilemma is exemplified by what is considered the historic first winter ascent of a 14,000 foot mountain on the American continent.

On March 26, 1856 A. C. Isaacs, Anton Roman and D. E. English made an ascent of Mount Shasta, California under conditions similar to mid winter. This ascent referred to as a winter ascent was originally published in the "California Daily Chronicle," San Francisco, April 9, 1856 and then in "The Weekly Chronicle," San Francisco, April 19, 1856.

In 1952 Glen Dawson of Dawson's Bookshop, Los Angeles reprinted Isaacs' “California Daily Chronicle” newspaper article in a 22 page book, “An Ascent of Mount Shasta: 1856” as Number XI of the Early California Travel Series to give it broader publicity. Francis P. Farquhar, the eminent Sierra historian, Sierra Club mountaineer and editor of the "Sierra Club Bulletin" wrote an introduction to this account of which “none surpasses in lively interest and straightforward description that of our present narrator, A. C. Isaacs.”

The narrative written in flowery and Victorian style which will capture one's fancy of what one reviewer in the journal "Appalachia" wrote that “what is probably one of the first winter ascents of a high peak on the American continent.” And it is to this narrative I turn to provide some of the details of this historic winter ascent when the height of Mount Shasta was estimated at from fourteen to fifteen thousand feet.

A. C. ISAACS whose first name was unknown to Farquhar was a businessman of two years while living in Yreka who had long wished to make the climb but now on the verge of moving back to Indiana, “either I must make an effort to ascend at this time or forever give up all thoughts.”

ANTON ROMAN was a Bavarian born bookseller who came to California during the gold rush in 1849 but spent his time traveling among the mining camps selling books. He eventually opened a bookstore in San Francisco in about 1859 and later founded the literary journal the "Overland Monthly" in 1868. Roman died in 1903.

D. E. ENGLISH was a local mining mill hand who had previously ascended the south peak of Shasta and served as guide.

They were accompanied part way to the foot of the mountain by some friends who prophesied failure and sought to dissuade them from the attempt but “we resolved at all events to try at a time so unpropitious.”

Their route of ascent was by way of the great chasm on the southern slope of the mountain to the Red Bluffs above and then the extreme summit of the mountain with its canopy of cloud.

At 6 o'clock A.M. on the third day they commenced clambering up the inaccessible snow and ice armed ramparts of the mountain. They were equipped with their iron-pointed and hooked staves. Isaacs put on a pair of boots with small spikes to prevent slipping on the snow. He substituted a coat for a grey woolen overshirt. A few crackers were their provisions. The thermometer was at the freezing point. Everything else of blankets, arms, &c. was left at their camping place.

Isaacs soon found his staff was of little service as it was too small but the spikes in his boots were much more useful. English expressed a fear that they would find trouble from the wind in the upper regions of the mountain with its continually increasing velocity and the diminishing temperature “which was already beginning to nip and pinch us a good deal.”

The scene in the vast hollow of their route was described as “In the center of this waste, howling wilderness are three moving specks, that with slow and painful step still clamber on and upwards towards the mountain's top.”

Isaacs' brother clamberers forged ahead of him while he struggled on alone until a wall of snow was reached. Isaacs writes, “Can I ascend it? Let us try. The top is neared – a few more crawls (it is hands and knees for it now) and it will be overcome!” After a slip and a slide to the bottom he drug his body “up, up, up once more” until “lo! exhausted I throw myself down on the hardly won top of this snow steep.”

At another precipitous face below the Bluffs, “mocking me with its glittering smile,” Issacs finds the spikes on his boots being now bent and curved have become a decided hindrance as he scrapes his way to the rocks beneath the Bluffs where “O! gladness” he is joined by his companions Roman and English.

The Red Bluffs now immediately before them becomes the most critical point to overcome. They buckled to their armor for their last opponent as away they clambered and scrambled over icicles and frozen snow. Isaacs describes their clambering and scrambling, “Keep firm your footing. Tread lightly on these brittle protuberances. Spring from point to point. Clutch at the projections, be they ever so small” as they pass through the last opening and close under the first great summit.

They make their way to the summit of the south ridge and come right into the teeth of the wind which “now struck upon us as the concentrated blast of a thousand tempests!” “It blew us about and made us totter and reel as drunken men, and occasionally threw us down with relentless fury.”

The cold becomes intense. Roman furiously beats his sides to keep some warmth in his arms. Roman finally cries, “Look at the thermometer, Twelve degrees below zero! Look at ourselves! Faces purple, and looking as if we had just been suffocated! - eyes almost closed up! - lips scarcely movable! - limbs stiffening with the cold! Shall we go on?”

They are at the level of the hot springs about two to three hundred feet below the highest peak another mile and a half along the ridge. But the inevitable becomes apparent. “Let us quit, therefore while we can” and they hurriedly began their descent from this most inclement and life-threatening spot.

Upon reaching their camping ground Roman's feet are frostbitten so bad such that he has to throw away his boots and tear up a blanket into pieces to tie his feet in it. They have been away ten and a half hours.

In an 1874 issue of the "Overland Monthly" magazine Roman recalled how the Isaacs party, and himself in particular, had suffered dreadfully from the cold on the summit. When “he took a thermometer from his clothes to observe the temperature, his stiffened fingers lost their grip, and the instrument fell from his numb hand, and was broken.”

Upon returning to Yreka, Roman “was snow-blind and frost-bitten and so altered in appearance that his own brother did not know him.” Later on he would relate that he never entirely recovered from his freezing ordeal on Mount Shasta's summit.

EPILOGUE
Farquhar in his introduction to Isaacs' account gives his interpretation of this winter ascent of Mount Shasta. He notes that beginning with 1854 to the end of 1856 some forty people had ascended the mountain. But not all of the forty had attained the highest pinnacle of Shasta's summit, a pile of rough lava about two hundred feet high about a mile across on the farther side of the crater rim. When one gets to it by the usual route “many a climber has reasoned with himself in the face of this unexpected extra nubbin, saying that, he could easily go on to the top, but that there is no sense in making one's self a slave to a technicality.”

Farquhar concludes that in the face of all events in the story, the three men who reached the summit rim on March 26, 1856 “should go the credit for the first ascent of Mount Shasta under wintry conditions.”

A more modern day interpretation of this winter ascent is presented in A. F. Eichorn's book “The Mt. Shasta Story,” 1957. Eichorn credits the fifth ascent of Mount Shasta to the Isaacs party of which “this climb was made under conditions similar to mid-winter.”

He further writes that “While the early mountaineering records of Mt. Shasta indicate that ascents have been made under conditions attributable to those of mid-winter, most of these ascents have been made in either late fall or early spring.” Eichorn credits the first successful winter climb during the winter months to a party of three men from San Francisco on February 23, 1924.

But at the time of their climb on March 26, 1856 one could probably not deny Misters Isaacs, Roman and English the historic first winter ascent of a 14,000 foot mountain in view of their faces purple and suffocating, eyes closed up, lips scarcely movable and limbs stiffening with the cold as they went on to climb Mount Shasta and upon returning so altered in appearance as unrecognizable.

[Scott P]

Very impressive ascent. Thanks for posting.

[14erFred]

Once again, gore galore has shared with us yet another highly entertaining historical tale from the annals of North American mountaineering. Reading this rendition of what is arguably the first winter ascent of an American 14er gave me a more vivid appreciation of what these early alpine pioneers faced on the heights in winter. Theirs was a bold and visionary adventure, many years ahead of its time. May that same spirit never die in the human race. Thanks for sharing with us your literary talents, gore galore. Your writing always leaves me hungry for more. Happy New Year to you.