Hike Mt. Shasta

A dawn lenticular looms above Mount Shasta.

I knew as soon as I was up this morning that there was a large lenticular cloud above Mount Shasta and that I was going to head out and photograph it. As a bonus, I was up early enough that I could get to one of my less frequented hike-to vistas in order to get a great shot of the mountain with the large cloud above it. However, as I was preparing to leave, my early-rising son was up and wanting to go. Unfortunately, he is currently on crutches with a broken leg so, not wanting to disappoint him (especially after he missed the hike with his Cub Scout pack) I went to my usual drive-to destination. It turned out this was not such a bad thing, since it had a good perspective on what turned out to be a pretty impressive cloud.

It is unnecessary to wax long on the cloud’s excellence. Suffice to say, I would rate it among the best so far this fall. The cloud was large, had multiple disk layers that were in constant flux. Early on it looked like a giant red blood cell but eventually took on a more stacked appearance. Toward the end, one corner of the disk started to develop an unusual grid-like pattern that caught the light in an unusual way.

As always, I am fascinated by the way Mount Shasta always changes the environment around it. The mountain remains the same (sort of, since it is still taking shape, but that’s another story) but the clouds that it creates and the way the light highlights these unusual features gives those of us who love these natural wonders a constantly changing visual feast.

I arranged the images in the gallery below in chronological order, revealing the way the cloud changed in the short amount of time I was there with my camera.

Click to enlarge: