On the weekend of August 18th and 19th, I did something that bordered on stupidity: I climbed Mt. Shasta in Northern California when there wasn't any snow. "No snow!", you exclaim. "Why is that stupid?" Well, it's actually much easier to climb nearly straight up when there are steps carved in snow. Trying to climb up loose shale (known as talus, I believe) is horribly inefficient. It's two steps backwards for every step forward.