Hike Mt. Shasta

Another gorgeous thunderstorm sailed through the Mount Shasta area on Monday night. With the system brewing up what looked like another spectacular sunset, I headed back out into the Shasta Valley once again. Unlike previous storms, no rain fell in the valley and the lightning, though visible, was all south of Mount Shasta. What there was, however, was a tremendous amount of wind. It made for some rapidly changing conditions over the mountain and for some pretty tremendous cloud displays. It certainly was time well spent:

The light never really lit Mount Shasta up a lot but it definitely cast a fantastic glow across the sky. The clouds changed rapidly, going from large puffy storm clouds to higher, more diffuse and gauzy formations. Both caught the light wonderfully as the sun sank behind the Little Scott Mountains to the west.

The whole Shasta Valley was aglow, but the clouds were the highlight as terms of color. The beauty of the sunset was not alone in making an impression, however. The wind was formidable.

The tumbleweed came in waves, so it was hard to document it at its peak, but this videos give some idea of how powerful the wind was and how abundant the tumbleweed proved to be.

So ubiquitous was this western icon, bits of it even got hung up on my tripod. The Shasta Valley is known for being windy but sometimes it is easy to forget just how powerful it can be.

Unfortunately, the beauty that was put on display did come with a price. The lightning did start a number of small fires, particularly in the Klamath Mountains to the west. Currently the largest fire is the Head Fire, on the Scott River just south of its confluence with the Klamath River. It is about 4,000 acres and on the western side, is burning into areas that previously burned within the last 10 years. Hopefully that can help contain the fire and it doesn’t grow too much more.

There was more lightning this afternoon, much of it dry in nature. I even saw Black Butte struck by a large bolt. Sadly I was picking my daughter up from horse riding lessons and did not have my camera out. Thankfully, it seems no fires were were started by this latest storm. I hope that proves to be the case in the morning…