A practical guide to beginning your mountaineering journey in California's Sierra Nevada
Written for JackBay Area → Sierra NevadaSpring 2026
You arrive in the Bay Area late February. The Sierra is still in winter conditions, which actually works in your favor because spring and early summer are when the snowpack is most stable and the weather windows are longest for learning snow travel.
The first few months you're just hiking. You're already fit from cycling—that ride from Portland to Bushwick put thousands of miles under you—but mountain fitness is different. It's about sustained vertical gain under load, about moving efficiently when oxygen is thin and the terrain tilts against you. You pick trails in the East Bay hills or Marin for weekday conditioning, and on weekends you start driving to the Sierra for bigger days. Desolation Wilderness, the Tahoe Rim Trail, anything with 3,000-plus feet of gain.
You're not buying mountaineering gear yet. You're using trail runners and whatever layering system you already own. The goal is getting your legs and lungs adapted and learning to move efficiently on steep terrain. The mountains aren't going anywhere. The fitness comes first.
The East Bay hills and Marin headlands offer accessible vertical for weekday conditioning. Three hours east, the Sierra waits.
The First Course
By April or May, you sign up for a two-day snow travel and crevasse rescue course. Several outfits run them in the Sierra and on Shasta. Sierra Mountaineering International operates out of the Eastern Sierra near Mammoth. Alpenglow Expeditions runs courses in the Tahoe area. SWS Mountain Guides offers programs directly on Mount Shasta's glaciers.
The course costs around $500-800, and they provide the technical gear—crampons, ice axes, harnesses—so you're not buying anything yet except perhaps gaiters and sun protection. What you're buying is the vocabulary of the mountains.
What You'll Learn in a Snow Travel Course
Self-arrest with an ice axe—the emergency brake for sliding on snow. Crampon technique—walking on steel points without tripping yourself or skewering your gaiters. Snow anchor construction—burying your axe or building a bollard to create something you can trust your life to. Rope team travel—moving across glaciated terrain where crevasses hide under snowbridges. The pulley systems for hauling a partner out of a crevasse. You spend two days on a snowfield roped to strangers, falling on purpose, digging holes, getting cold and tired. You come away with a basic vocabulary.
Sierra Mountaineering International
Eastern Sierra • 1-2 day courses • $350-600
Based near Mammoth Lakes with easy access to high-altitude training terrain. Their Snow Travel Course covers the fundamentals; their Snow Anchors and Crevasse Rescue course goes deeper into glacier travel skills. Schedule them back-to-back for a comprehensive introduction.
The Gear
Now you need gear. The front-loaded costs are real but not outrageous—especially against your incoming compensation. The gear lasts for years if you treat it well. Here's what you're buying and why.
La Sportiva Nepal Evo GTX
~$700
The most important purchase. Full-grain leather, Gore-Tex lined, crampon-compatible. Warm enough for winter conditions, stiff enough for front-pointing on steep ice. Try these on in person at REI or Sports Basement. The fit matters more than the brand.
Petzl Vasak Crampons
~$200
Twelve-point steel crampons with horizontal front points for solid purchase on hard snow. The Leverlock binding works with boots that have heel welts. Anti-balling plates prevent snow from accumulating underfoot. A workhorse crampon for general mountaineering.
Petzl Summit Ice Axe
~$150
A classic mountaineering axe in the 60-70cm range. Hot-forged steel pick with good self-arrest characteristics. The curved shaft provides clearance on steeper terrain. Light enough for long approaches, serious enough for real mountain work.
Harness & Helmet
~$150
A lightweight mountaineering harness and a certified climbing helmet. If you've done any rock climbing, you may already own these. The helmet is non-negotiable—rockfall is the silent killer on volcanic routes.
Item
Cost
Mountaineering boots
$650-750
Crampons
$180-220
Ice axe
$130-170
Harness & helmet
$120-180
Snow travel course
$500-800
Summit permits & gas
$100-150
First Year Total
$1,700 - $2,300
After the initial outlay, ongoing costs are modest. Permits run $25-30 per climb. Gas to the mountains. Maybe a guide for your first summit attempt. The gear lasts for years—the leather on those Nepal boots will outlive several resoles. This isn't golf or sailing. The mountains are public and the only ongoing fee is showing up.
Mount Shasta via Avalanche Gulch
Your first real objective. At 14,179 feet, Shasta is California's fifth-highest peak and the most prominent volcano in the Cascade Range. The Avalanche Gulch route is not technical, but it's not trivial either—7,000 feet of elevation gain from the Bunny Flat trailhead, much of it on snow, with altitude that will slow you down significantly above 12,000 feet.
The climb starts in forest, passes the historic Sierra Club cabin at Horse Camp, then rises through the snowfields to Helen Lake at 10,400 feet—the standard bivy site. From there, the summit push follows the gulch to Red Banks, over Misery Hill, and finally to the sulfur-stained summit pinnacle.
14,179'
Summit Elevation
7,200'
Elevation Gain
11 mi
Round Trip
2 days
Typical Duration
The Training Timeline
Here's how the first year unfolds. The timing assumes you're settling into the Bay Area in late February and building toward a late-May or early-June summit attempt on Shasta.
March – April
Conditioning hikes. East Bay hills during the week, Sierra weekends. Build to 3,000+ feet of gain with a pack. Learn to pace yourself on sustained climbs. The cardio base from cycling helps, but mountain legs are different—train them specifically.
Late April – Early May
Snow travel course. Two days learning the fundamentals. Self-arrest, crampon technique, rope team travel, crevasse rescue systems. Come away with the vocabulary and basic competence to join a summit attempt.
Mid-May
Gear acquisition. Boots first—try them on, walk around the store, make sure they fit. Then crampons matched to the boot. Ice axe sized to your height. This is the week you spend money.
Late May – Early June
Mount Shasta via Avalanche Gulch. Your first real peak. Either with a guide service ($500-700 for a two-day summit climb) or with an experienced partner from a mountaineering club. The weather window is optimal, the snowpack is stable, and the crowds are manageable.
Summer
More peaks. Maybe Shasta again by a different route—Casaval Ridge for something steeper, or Clear Creek for a change of scenery. High Sierra objectives: Mount Humphreys, Bear Creek Spire, North Palisade. You start to learn what kind of climbing interests you most.
"The transition from bike touring suggests you already understand that the type of enjoyment isn't moment-to-moment pleasure but something that accumulates in retrospect. That's most of what mountaineering asks temperamentally."
The Summit Push
You drive up Friday after work, five hours to the town of Mount Shasta. You sleep in your car at the Bunny Flat trailhead. Saturday morning you're hiking by 6am with a 40-pound pack, crampons and axe strapped to the outside.
You climb through the trees, then above treeline onto the snowfields, then up a long rising traverse to Helen Lake. You arrive mid-afternoon, dig out a tent platform, melt snow for water, and try to eat enough calories despite the altitude suppressing your appetite. You set an alarm for 2am.
The summit push is four to five hours of climbing in the dark, headlamp on, crampons biting into frozen snow. You're moving slowly, breathing deliberately, stopping to rest every hundred feet above 13,000. The sun rises somewhere on the way up and the world turns pink and then gold.
You reach the summit around 7am, stand on sulfur-stained rocks with steam venting from fumaroles, look out at the Cascades stretching north into Oregon. You stay fifteen minutes because the weather is good and you want to remember it. Then you descend, carefully, because most accidents happen on the way down when people are tired and the snow is softening.
Finding Partners
You don't do this alone the first time. The culture of mountaineering runs on mentorship—experienced climbers taking newer people along because everyone remembers being the beginner who needed a patient rope partner. There are several paths to finding people.
Guide Services
For your first summit, a guide service offers built-in instruction and safety management. Sierra Mountaineering International, SWS Mountain Guides, and Shasta Mountain Guides all run regular trips up Avalanche Gulch. Cost runs $500-700 for a two-day summit climb. You get the benefit of someone who has been up the route hundreds of times and knows exactly where the conditions are tricky.
Mountaineering Clubs
The Sierra Club's mountaineering sections have trip calendars and partner-finding systems. The Bay Chapter runs regular trips to Sierra peaks. The culture is that you work your way up through easier climbs to build trust and demonstrate competence before joining harder objectives. It's a slower path but it builds community.
Online Communities
Mountain Project has a partner forum. So does SuperTopo. The Bay Area climbing community is active on these platforms. You post your objectives and experience level, you vet potential partners through conversations and easier outings, you build trust over time. Be honest about your experience—overselling yourself is dangerous and the experienced climbers can tell anyway.
The Long View
After that first summer, the progression opens up. You know what kind of objectives interest you most—whether it's the altitude and suffering of big peaks or the technical movement of mixed rock and ice. You have partners whose pace and risk tolerance match yours. You start reading trip reports and eyeing lines that would have seemed absurd six months earlier.
The Sierra's proximity is the key advantage. Shasta is a day's drive. Tahoe-area peaks are three hours. The High Sierra is reachable for long weekends. You don't need to fly anywhere or burn a week of PTO for a meaningful objective. The pattern that works for people with full-time jobs: conditioning during the week, weekend trips to build skills and tick moderate peaks, and saving longer PTO blocks for extended trips once you've developed the competence for them.
The whole first year costs maybe $2,500 in gear and courses and permits, plus gas money. After that the annual cost drops to a few hundred dollars unless you're traveling to distant ranges. You're not trying to become a professional alpinist. You're trying to become someone who climbs mountains. That's very doable.
The Sierra Nevada from the eastern escarpment. Your training ground for the next several years—and beyond.
Resources
Guide Services
Sierra Mountaineering International — sierramountaineering.com — Eastern Sierra courses and guided climbs SWS Mountain Guides — swsmtns.com — Mount Shasta specialists since 1981 Alpenglow Expeditions — alpenglowexpeditions.com — Tahoe-based courses and expeditions International Alpine Guides — internationalalpineguides.com — Comprehensive mountaineering courses
Gear Shops
REI — Multiple Bay Area locations — Try on boots in person Sports Basement — Bay Area chain — Good prices, decent selection The Fifth Season — Mount Shasta — Local expertise, current conditions
Conditions & Information
Mount Shasta Avalanche Center — shastaavalanche.org — Essential for current route conditions Sierra Avalanche Center — sierraavalanchecenter.org — Eastern Sierra forecasts Mountain Project — mountainproject.com — Route beta and partner forum
