Hike Mt. Shasta

It is hard to believe that we have charged this far into October already. The days are shorter but the light is so glorious now. It is no longer the harsh, high angle summer. Now things just seem to glow. However, the days have been perfectly warm and the night temperatures are only just now coming down toward freezing at night. This means we have not seen much in the way of fall color…yet. Despite not having the autumn palette splashed across the landscape and the weather generally stable and warm, there have been a few noteworthy incidents this month.

Early in the month, I went up to Castle Lake for the sunrise, hoping to see some comets, clouds or something. Nothing of the sort was to be found. However, the Big Dipper was located perfectly centered over Mount Shasta. The clarity, even as the horizon was lightening. All the stars were visible, even the Alcor (the Rider above Mizar’s Horse). It was a nice consolation prize after getting up early, heading up to the high country and getting skunked on all I had hoped to see.

A few days later, the forecast called for some disturbed weather. I anticipated this might yield a lenticular, so once again I was up well before dawn. This time, rather than heading to the high country, I went to the Shasta Valley, always a good bet for sunrise and sunset. I knew even when it was dark that I was correct, since a huge disk hung in the sky over Mount Shasta. As dawn approached, the disk began to shrink but it was still a spectacular sunrise, with a colorful sky and interesting patterns in the clouds.

The lenticular persisted all day and was still maintaining its presence over Mount Shasta as the sun went down. The sunset was no where near as colorful as the sunrise but it was still a fascinating view of the mountain, cast in shadow by the cloud but with the tall lenticular still absorbing the fading light.

A few days later, we had some rain and Mount Shasta got a light dusting of fresh snow at the higher elevations. However, most fortunately, as the storm broke just before sunset, the lingering showers and low sunlight produced an fantastic rainbow over Mount Shasta. The precipitation made focusing on the peak difficult but just getting a good rainbow and the mountain in the same frame a happy incident.

As the rainbow faded, the clouds began to swallow up Mount Shasta, just as the alpenglow began to light up the snowy parts of the mountain. Within minutes, it was practically gone, leaving only a cloudy sky as it began to grow dark.

The next morning the sky was clear but there was a vaguely lenticularly-shaped formation over the summit. The snow left from the previous storm was still present. I was taking my kids to school when I stopped I captured this shot of Mount Shasta. I was hopeful this might portend a growing lenticular throughout the day.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. The lenticularish cloud faded in the late morning. However, formless clouds continued to linger throughout the day. By sunset snow was blowing off the summit and mixing with the small clouds that were still sailing past the higher parts of the mountain. Not grand in the way the unusual meteorological formations are but still magnificent in its own, Mount Shasta way.

Lastly, just as we began careening through the second half of October, a surprise lenticular made a brief appearance. There had been nothing noteworthy in the sky at all throughout the day. No clouds were visible anywhere. However in the afternoon, a cloud began blanketing the summit of the mountain. From the west, it did not look like much but the outer corners curled up just enough to make me think a lenticular was visible from the Shasta Valley. Sure enough, this was the case and the layered disks were visible extending to the northeast. Furthermore, quite unexpectedly, a small free-floating formation also arrived from nowhere!

The alpenglow intensified on Mount Shasta, heralding the sun’s final descent and the arrival of the enveloping darkness. I had not anticipated any such formation but Mount Shasta remains predictably unpredictable.