Brief report:
Great surface conditions on Casaval Ridge on May 29, 2005. Started hiking in at 2:30AM from Bunny Flat with awagher and Matthew Holliman. Hard snow crust.....cramponed up all the way to the summit. Matthew and I encountered 35-40mph wind with blowing snow that stinged once it hit our faces; also encountered white-out clouds (we could only see 50 yards ahead; had to stop a few times to wait for the less-than 5 second semi-clearing to get a quick glimpse where to move up next; in fact, we had to wait a few minutes so that I could see the Catwalk; same thing happened just after topping out Casaval. I told Matthew we have to stop right here because I was able to see the drop down to the Whitney Glacier. There we waited several minutes while being hammered by the winds until finally there was a clearing and I could see Misery Hill. From there on, it went smoothly. I reached the summit at 10:57AM with Matthew a few minutes behind as he went up one of those short south-facing chutes just below the summit. Saw only two other people at the top. We started down at 11:25AM. I glissaded from just below the Red Banks to within a few hundred yards of Lake Helen. Back at Bunny Flat at 1:50PM (11hrs 20min car-to-car), where awagher had beer waiting for us. Later met up with rhyang at Lalo's restaurant in town for an early dinner.
Additional info about climbing Mount Shasta can be found here.