One Beautiful but Tough Mountain : Guided Climb of Mt. Shasta's Northeast Side, Hotlam-Bolum Ridge route, Aug. 16-18, 2013, A Trip Report Scott B. Martin The early morning view on the ascent from around 11-11,500'. "Exhausting," "beautiful," "breathless"--these are a few of the adjectives that come to mind after a fitful but ultimately successful summit bid last month on Mt. Shasta and climb back down. When I first heard about Shasta last spring from a guy with whom I was supposed to share a rope with on an expedition up Mt. Whitney in March, I didn't realize I was in for quite such a tough challenge. Just after finishing the climb, four of us, including one guide, who've been on Rainier rated it just as tough if not tougher than that storied mountain--given uneven, "teacupped" snow, some steeper terrain, and a lot of gnarly dirt/scree/rock sections interspersed with snow slopes that we had to move through. T