Hike Mt. Shasta

Light, clouds and profuse wildflowers made July’s final sunset majestic.

As is typical, the Old Ski Bowl finally opened up at the end of July. My family has always enjoyed heading up there with dinner, enjoying the sights while we eat together and then spending the sunset scrambling on the rocks and hiking about. This year the wildflowers are riotous and make for a gorgeous highlight to the already spectacular setting. Add in a few clouds and July closed out in spectacular form.

I wanted to try to capture the same flowers in the morning light, so I headed back up early in the morning. I arrived at the Old Ski Bowl a little before 6AM. It was quite, with a light breeze. The feel of the lonely wind and the silence take me back to trips I made in the Sierra when I was young, sitting atop granite ridges (for some reason, my memory always places those trips in the fall) and feeling the gentle breeze and the contradictory stillness that penetrated everything. This was one of those times.

When I arrived, the view to the south was dominated by the smoke that was emanating from the now largely smoldering Park Fire. That conflagration, which began 115 miles to the southeast, had been vomiting smoke for a week or so and now it was in the soupy, swirling phase before it finally got flushed out to wherever it finally is exiled. Thankfully, though the area to the south was think with smoke, the pall was held at bay at the Sacramento River canyon and only a thin haze hung over the Strawberry Valley (wherein  lies the town of Mount Shasta).

Note the clouds’ change of direction.

While the smoke seemed nearly ubiquitous to the south, at nearly 8,000 feet on the side of Mount Shasta, there was naught of the aerosol remnants of forests further south. Sunrise finally arrived and I was able to watch the light’s advance down the cliffs of Green Butte and then across the expanse of the Old Ski Bowl. I love watching isolate shafts of light illuminating focused points of trees and rock, while the rest of the area around them remain in shadow. It adds a great deal of texture to the already textured landscape.

All the flowers finally in the light, I captured a few more images before packing up my gear and getting ready to head home. Though the clouds weren’t as beautiful as the night before, it was still a stunning morning in amidst the lushness of the Old Ski Bowl.

As I was heading home, I noticed the smoke was thickening to the south. Areas that were visible an hour earlier were now smothered.

Nonetheless, the Sacramento River canyon continued to hold the smoke at bay. The Castle Crags, on the canyon’s west side, remained visible and the morning light turned the granite walls orange.

Further east, however, was some cause for despair. The smoke was a dense stew, with only the hazy silhouettes of Lassen Peak and nearby Crater Peak visible on the horizon. Their elevation was the only reason these were visible from the slopes of Mount Shasta.

The smoke did not threaten for long and the changing weather system pushed the haze out altogether. Clouds gathered throughout the day and by sunset the air was clear, save that it nearly glowed with the reflected light of alpenglow. Not only was the light gorgeous but there was the added bonus of a nascent lenticular forming near Shastina. Now this was a summer sunset! It also brought showers throughout the night and into the next day.

By evening, the clouds had largely cleared. To the east only a vestige of the system that had cooled things down for 24 hours remained clinging to the summit of Mount Shasta. The light of the setting sun light things up gently and made a beautiful scene sublime. I hope this is the start of a beautiful month here around the mountain.