Hike Mt. Shasta

Afternoon light glows on Mount Shasta’s fresh snow.

It’s hard to believe March is over. It slipped by so fast that the routine of life – and the dreary weather – hardly made it notable. We had a few days that inched up toward the 70’s but otherwise Mount Shasta was socked into a perpetual stream of storms. One would abate, the sun would appear and then be gone the next day as the next round of weather moved in. It never offered up interesting formations and the light was rarely of note, as the sky was too laden with storms to yield much memorable.

That said, there were a few rare occasions where the clouds cleared enough to get some light on the mountain and something more than the meteorological equivalent of a ritz cracker. The above image is about as interesting as it got. Of course, any color, clouds and other conditions on Mount Shasta are still exceptional. I am fully aware of how spoiled I have become… Still, the storms have been good to us. The rivers are in full, the snowpack is deep and Shasta Lake, ever the litmus test of a good winter, is only 17 feet below its crest. That the lake is practically full, and before the wet weather has past and the thaw set in, is testimony to how good this, and the two previous, winters have been.

The most notable thing that happened in March was my family returning to Pecos Point on Truchas Ridge. It is very, very difficult to believe that we have not been out there for nearly two years. This was a place we visited almost weekly until it was…violated…in April of 2023. In some ways, the trauma of that event snapped the spell the ridge had my family under. It was good to go back, despite the changes and the pervasive sense of loss we still feel there.

The site of much trauma, the scars on the land are getting harder to see…

However, despite the hurts inflicted wantonly on the land, it is also gratifying to see the healing touch creation has and to see how much the land has actually recovered in our absence. It will never go back to what it was but it can still be a place of goodness. We all look forward to returning again, especially as the land continues to heal. Perhaps I will write of this saga soon…

As if to welcome us back, our time at the ridge was met with a newcomer to the avian denizens. At least, a newcomer in terms of our experience there. A host of cedar waxwings fluttered all about the junipers at the bottom of the ridge. These crested fellows were a welcome sign that things are alright at Truchas Ridge. As were the abundant elk prints…