Hike Mt. Shasta

An anonymous waterfall thunders over a precipice, deep in the Castle Crags. 

Spring is Castle Crags season and April in particular is the best month of the year to venture into the vas granite wonderland. The Castle Crags are steep and rugged and composed of erosion resistant granite, which is perfect country for waterfalls. The only downside is that with few exceptions, the waterways in the Castle Crags are very seasonal due to the fact that the same geology that makes for great waterfall country also limits the size of the watersheds.  This means you have to hit the falls in the spring when the snow is melting or after a rain. Timing it right for either circumstance will yield fantastic cataracts.

The Castle Crags are an incredibly rugged, nearly in accessible and utterly spectacular granite wilderness.

Only a couple of the numerous waterfalls in the Castle Crags are accessed by trails. These two, Burstarse Falls and Root Creek Falls, are among the largest and prettiest. The rest of the waterfalls in the Crags must be reached by unofficial trails, scrambling routes and, in some cases, some rough cross country travel. The effort, however, is very worth it. There is very little as beautiful and soothing as the sound of wild water running over granite and spring in the Castle Crags offers this in abundance. Add to this the beautiful spring weather, which is usually just the right temperature, seeing how the Crags are lower elevation than most areas around Mount Shasta, and this is the regions perfect spring hiking destination.

The above images are just a sampling of the large and small waterfalls found in the Castle Crags. Most are unknown or unnamed. When hiking in the Castle Crags, whether along the PCT or on the mysterious north side, every creek crossing could be downstream from a cataract. These are the domain of the explorer.

Aside from the waterfalls themselves, the thing I love most about hiking to the waterfalls in the Castle Crags is how it feels like Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. The geology, dominated as it is by granite, is akin to California’s most famous mountains. It has always been comforting to this Sierra lover that even though they are more hours further away than I would like, their long-lost cousin is just minutes away. And that is to say nothing of the Trinity Alps. But that is another story…