Hike Mt. Shasta

October has turned out to be a fairly pleasant month, with nice temperatures and plenty of sunshine…just the thing you don’t want when trying to get a good photographic start to autumn. What you want, at least before the nice weather, is a storm or two to shoot through the area. The storms fill the sky with drama, leave the mountain white and the colder temperature get the trees’ leaves changing color. None of this  occurred and it seemed like summer’s last days continued to stretch long and longer into the month. I began to wonder if it would even precipitate at all this month, which would break any chances of the record I have been keeping an eye on.

Those fears were finally put to rest over the weekend and a storm finally arrived and along with it, significantly lower temperatures. It was great. Fall has finally arrived. I will miss the nice weather but I love the meteorological pyrotechnics, the white mountain, the golden leaves and the feeling of the ebb of the year too much to miss it too much. I am glad to finally be in autumn.

A day before the storm, Mount Shasta still had small pockets of snow from September’s storm clinging to clefts high on the mountain.

Halfway through the storm, the clouds rolled back a bit and it was obvious that Mount Shasta finally got some snow!

Sunrise lights up the clouds on Mount Shasta, another stately dawn on the lonely mountain.

In truth, the storm was not big and the snow just a dusting but with the lower temps, it is not going away anytime soon. There is more precipitation on the way too, so it looks like fall really did finally show up! Here’s to the coming winter. May it be a good one!