Two fatal falls occurred on California’s Mount Shasta 14,179 feet in the past month, both on the mountain’s “easiest” late-season route, Clear Creek.
At first glance, the deaths are surprising. By September, the ultra-prominent volcano is largely free of snow, often rendering the Clear Creek route a non-technical hike. “It’s a slog of a scree slope,” said Sage Milestone of the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.
Yet Milestone and the peak’s lead climbing ranger, Nick Meyers of the U.S. Forest Service, told Climbing that the deaths highlight a stark reality. Even on an otherwise easy route, poor decision-making can compound into serious accidents, and even death.
Uncontrolled Glissade Leads to Fatal Slide
The most recent death occurred on September 12. Silicon Valley executive Matías Travizano, a 45-year-old Argentinian man, was descending from the mountain when he wandered off route, according to Milestone. Although Travizano had arrived at the mountain alone, he linked up with two other men hiking at the same pace, and the trio summited together. Travizano and one other man began to hike down slightly ahead of the third, who later reported the accident.
Clouds had socked in the peak and visibility was poor. As the men descended from the main summit plateau, all three veered off-route to the east.
“It’s pretty steep, and it’s all scree, so it’s easy to lose the trail, particularly with bad visibility,” said Milestone. She added that no clear landmarks exist to identify the way down. At around 13,500 feet, the party realized they were off route when they reached a perennial snowfield, near the uppermost tip of the Wintun Glacier.
The men were hiking without crampons, ice axes, microspikes, or other traction equipment for traveling across snow and ice. But instead of hiking to regain the correct, snow-free route, they decided to glissade down the snow and ice to save time.
“They didn’t want to climb back up and regain a bunch of elevation,” Milestone explained. But jagged, exposed rock littered the snowfield, and it was incredibly icy due to the low temperatures. “It was a very bad time to glissade.”
Chiefly, without ice axes, the men had no way to control their slide or self-arrest.
Soon after beginning to slide, Travizano lost control and gained speed rapidly. After plummeting down the slope around 300 feet, he collided with a large rock, knocking himself unconscious. Witnessing this, the second climber spent a few minutes trying to pick his way down the icy slope to reach Travizano and render aid.
He came close. But when he was roughly 80 feet up slope from Travizano, the man “regained consciousness, tried to stand up, and just fell,” Milestone explained. The 45-year-old continued to slide at an increasing rate of speed, down into the gloom and out of sight.
At this point, it also dawned on the climber who saw Travizano fall that he was stranded on the same icy slope and was afraid to move.
“He couldn’t get off, and he was having a really hard time self-rescuing from that position,” Milestone said.
The third climber, who had descended more slowly from above, was the most experienced in the party, according to Milestone, and was able to coach this man off the steep slope. The two later regained the trail using a GPS device and called in the accident. Travizano’s lifeless body was located by 6:45 P.M., some 2,000 feet below, according to Milestone. His body was not recovered until the following day, however, due to storms and increasingly poor visibility.
Travizano was a native of Argentina, but lived in the United States in recent years. He was the founder and former CEO of GranData—a Silicon Valley startup dedicated to data analysis and the development of new forms of artificial intelligence—which he sold last year.
“He had been on Aconcagua and a few other South American mountains,” Milestone said. “This was definitely not his first mountaineering expedition, but it was his first time on Mount Shasta.” A friend of Travizano’s remembered him as a brilliant mentor, “a special human being,” and a “great leader” with a love of nature. He is survived by his wife and son.
Two Men Split Up to Find Their Camp, But Only One Made It Back
This season’s second fatality on Mount Shasta occurred just a month earlier, on August 16, on the same route. A pair of climbers had summited via Clear Creek, also during a stormy period and without wet-weather gear. As they descended to their camp, they became lost. It was their first time on the mountain.
“They got on the wrong ridge, took it down to like 11,000 feet—completely off trail—and couldn’t find their basecamp,” Milestone said. “So the two men split up and went looking in opposite directions.”
One individual found the camp, and since he had cell reception, he was able to call his partner. The man managed to communicate to his partner that he was lost, but was clearly suffering from altitude sickness. He was disoriented and borderline incoherent.
“The guy was trying to explain where he was at, but then they lost service,” Milestone said.
Storms, which had been brewing on the peak all day, quickly worsened.
“It started raining, heavy cloud cover came in,” Milestone recalled. “Siskiyou Search and Rescue, CHP [California Highway Patrol] Air Ops, and the climbing rangers all searched through the night on that one, but they couldn’t find him.”
The man was later discovered at the bottom of a steep cliff band, “wedged between an ice sheet and the cliff.” He had sustained significant head trauma and was found alive but unconscious. He died in the hospital two days later.
“People have a very lax view of this route,” Milestone said of Shasta’s Clear Creek. “We see a lot of accidents this time of year on that route, because it attracts the least experienced folks, who want to take a stab at climbing Shasta in a non-technical way. Then you get some pretty gnarly weather, or just lack of experience, and bad stuff can happen.”
Just a few days before this fatality, on August 10, another serious but non-fatal glissading accident occurred. An unnamed climber lost control while glissading down another route, Avalanche Gulch, tumbling several hundred feet down the mountain. The climber was injured, but was successfully rescued.
In total, Milestone said there have been nine rescue operations on Shasta this season.
What Do Shasta’s Climbing Rangers Have to Say?
The Forest Service’s Nick Meyers is Shasta’s lead climbing ranger, with 22 years of experience working the peak. He also manages the Mount Shasta Wilderness Program and serves as director of the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center.
“We try hard to spread the gospel of safe mountaineering practices, but you can’t hit home runs all day long,” Meyers told Climbing.
Shasta usually sees between one and three fatal accidents and a dozen rescue operations each year, so the two deaths and nine calls so far in 2025 don’t exceed average incident levels. According to Meyers, prime climbing season on Shasta begins, snowfall depending, in late April. The season continues through May and June, tapering off after early July, when snow starts to deteriorate.
Although Clear Creek is generally a safe, non-technical route, Meyers adds that it’s still a long, steep slog, with extensive elevation gain. If parties stray off course, anything can happen. When the route experiences good conditions—and is followed correctly—the route is what Meyers and his rangers recommend for late-season climbs.
The fact that the men involved in the September 12 accident were not carrying crampons or axes wasn’t necessarily indicative of poor decision-making.
“We’ll even go so far as to say, you don’t need to bring an ice axe and crampons for Clear Creek in good conditions,” Meyers said. “This is granted—in all capitals—that you stay on the route. Don’t get Casual Day Syndrome. Don’t treat it as just a hike.”
Rather, the September 12 incident resulted from not just one, but multiple bad decisions, Meyers added. The men climbed despite weather reports forecasting poor conditions later in the day, leading them to summit in a whiteout. This poor visibility, coupled with inadequate navigation, contributed to their party becoming off-route during their descent and arriving at the top of the glacier. The decision to glissade, instead of retrace their steps, was another apparent blunder. For one, the men had no axes, and the terrain was in particularly poor condition.
“This time of the year, the snow is so nasty,” Meyers said. “It’s dirty and icy—a total cheese grater.”
Shasta is one of the few glaciated 14,000-foot peaks in the contiguous United States, and among the most topographically prominent summits on the continent. Like many 14ers, it can morph from a day hike into a serious objective, depending on season, conditions, route choice, and fitness and experience.
Under ideal late-season conditions, Clear Creek can feel like a straightforward hike (this author ran the route in trail shoes in a morning last September). But the weather can change in an instant, and staying on course is crucial. Checking climbing and avalanche conditions in advance can also help anyone vying for Shasta’s summit plan their trip more safely.
“Remember, a route description is for that route,” Meyers said. “If you get off route, you very likely will encounter different conditions.”
The climbing ranger’s final piece of advice?
“Do not climb into a whiteout or storm. Check the weather. Use navigation tools. Be prepared. In a lot of the accidents we see, folks are checking boxes that are pretty easy to avoid checking.”
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