Hike Mt. Shasta

Over the years, it has been my focus to capture Mount Shasta in images and I have not ventured much beyond that in terms of other media. However, periodically over the last couple of years I have dipped my toe into making GIFs. They are essentially all low-grade time lapses. I have not had the patience or knowledge to make true, high quality time lapses but the GIFs give an idea of what the scene looked and felt like. That really is the essence of what I have sought to do with the entire Hike Mt Shasta website: to give those who come here a sense of place through images and the written word. This short little animations are just one more tool to accomplish that goal.

The thought occurred to me that I had finally accumulated enough animated images that I ought to gather them all together in one place and make them easier to find, for those so inclined. I hope that these capture, in some small way, the spirit of awe and majesty that is expressed through Mount Shasta!

This is probably my favorite GIF I have made. It was an epic sunrise full of color and awesome clouds. Note the shadow cast by the lenticular in the upper right. It is awesome testimony to how large the clouds are that the shadow is cast in the sky. This was one of my favorite sunrises of 2019.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy in the sky or anything else at this scene but the scene itself was epic enough. Looking south at the head the upper end of Bolam Creek Canyon, the Bolam Glacier clings to Mount Shasta’s heights. New Coquette Falls flows into the canyon from the side, pouring over a band of dense rock that has resisted erosion. Things don’t get too much more epic than this.

An awesome sunset on Mount Shasta viewed from the west. I love how the sunrises start at the summit of the mountain and then move downward while sunsets start at the base of the mountain and move upward. The latter leaves the last little bit of light clinging to the summit as the sun moves beyond the horizon and then the light just fades away. Magnificent.

Another sunset, this time viewed from the northwest. From here Mount Shasta looks less like a singular mountain and more like a collection of high peaks in a mountain range. This is in part due to the presence of Shastina, which dominates the lower left half of this frame. Its crags, as well as Diller Canyon, add a lot of depth to this perspective.

A spectacular morning at Lake Siskiyou, with a trio of lenticulars over Mount Shasta. The reflection wasn’t perfect but I was not complaining. This collection of clouds did not seem like they were going to amount to much but right before the light came they all coalesced into the formation as seen here.

A great, colorful morning at Lake Siskiyou with some awesome lenticulars over Mount Shasta. Aside from the awesome clouds, the most memorable aspect of this morning was the way the light bounced off of the high clouds and made the whole area glow. This is especially visible on Mount Shasta itself. No direct sunlight hit the mountain but the mountain lights up nonetheless.

Yet another morning at Lake Siskiyou. This sunrise had a nice reflection in the water and a full lake, so there was not bathtub ring visible. Though this animation is short, it gives a good example of how the sunlight creeps across the sky as the sun comes up.

This was a sunset I witnessed from Girard Ridge, south of Dunsmuir. I was there to try to capture a night image of Mount Shasta with the Neowise comet. The sunset itself proved to be pretty interesting and, though I don’t like man-made objects in my images, I have to confess the lights on I-5 did add a lot of interest to this scene. If you look carefully, you can spot lights descending Everitt Memorial Highway on Mount Shasta too. The change in brightness once the sun set was due to my adjusting the settings on my camera.

This sunset on Mount Shasta was graced by a nice lenticular wave. Not only is this a good example of how the light fades upwards but it also gives a good sense of how the waves are constantly in flux when they appear over the mountain. Overall, a pretty awesome sequence.

This scene was captured from McCloud, south of Mount Shasta. The cloud was a lenticular and that was more evident when viewed from the west. From the south the lens-shaped cloud could still be seen but its rougher, chaotic edge where it dissipated dominated this perspective.

This animation is short and has a bit of a lurch because of the camera shifting but it was an epic scene. What more can I say?

Mount Shasta was not very visible for this event but the way the lenticulars clouded up and then casted off the extra cloud was pretty awesome. The sequence captured here was the third of three that I witnessed as the sun was coming up.

This particular animation was intended to document the way the wave over the mountain and the disk above it sloughed off a corresponding smaller cloud and smaller disk. I have never seen a formation like this nor this kind of behavior where twin segments separated themselves from the main clouds.

This was the first GIF I made for Hike Mt Shasta. it was short and had some camera lurch but it was only intended to be an experiment to see if such an animation were possible. A bit of history, this one!