Hike Mt. Shasta

Cloud enshrouded Mount Shasta on the morning the storm began.

The last few days of October were great autumn days. Suddenly, on the 1st of November, we got an unexpected snow storm that dropped 4-5 inches. This was an unusually large amount of snow for this time of year and it came with no warning, since only rain was in the forecast. A few glorious days followed, with a white mountain and glowing fall leaves. However, more rain and possibly some snow was in the forecast. I was expecting Mount Shasta to be even whiter than it the first snow had made it but when the weather finally arrived, I (and all of nature) was unprepared for what showed up.

The morning the storm was slated to arrive, I headed out to the east side of Mount Shasta. Everything was purified white with snow and at sunrise everything glowed marvelously in pink light. Mount Shasta presaged the storm by gathering a dense cap of cloud over its upper flanks so it was largely hidden. Nonetheless, the glow was grand and magical and made for an exhilarating sunrise. I even got a nice shot of one of my favorite junipers, which is located on a rocky prominence, contrasted against the fiery sky.

A loan juniper greets Aurora.

By the time I left, the clouds were moving in and the storm was on its way. It rained all day, but never particularly hard until the evening. Then, during the night it really started to snow. By morning, it turned out to be far more than anticipated. We measured 10 inches around 7 AM!

Only a few days into November, we woke up to a midwinter scene! Some snow was expected but nearly a foot was very unexpected.

It continued to snow throughout the day, eventually adding another 5 inches so that we had about 15 inches at my house. This would have been a pretty good midwinter storm but for it to come right at the beginning of November, in the heart of autumn was pretty impressive. I have seen a few storms like this around Thanksgiving but never just a few days after Halloween.

Of course, this kind of weather does not come without a price. The early storm didn’t just catch people off guard. It also caught all the trees off guard. Since October was so warm, we didn’t get a lot of fall color in that month this year. This means that most of the trees were just starting to get their fall color and a significant number were still green. Leaves on trees means more surface area for snow to accumulate which means significantly more weight and strain on the branches. Many simply gave up and snapped. I had a few come down at my house but in town the damage was heavy, with broken limbs ubiquitous on the sides of the streets. Even a few large trees were toppled over at their roots.

An entire tree in my backyard tipped over at the roots from the massive snow load in 2010.

I have not seen this kind of storm damage around town since the great storm of January 2010, when feet (and I mean feet!) of snow came down in a matter of days and broke limbs and toppled trees everywhere. It was the biggest and most damaging storm I have ever seen. This most recent snowfall was nothing like the quantity that fell then but the presence of the leaves on the trees made for a lot of damage.

A frigidly warm sunrise on Mount Shasta’s sunrise. 

In the end, Mount Shasta finally got a really nice blanket of snow on it, rendering the mountain white once and for all for the winter. I hope this early snowfall is an auspicious start to the winter season. I love fall, but I don’t think were getting much of it this year. We kind of had a long summer and are jumping right into winter. The way we need water, I don’t think I will be complaining!

Another beautiful Friday morning on Mount Shasta.

Sunset sets a fire in the sky above Mount Shasta.

After being delayed through a pleasant but somewhat meteorologically boring October, Autumn has arrived at its full vigor here in Mount Shasta. November 1st brought unexpected snow and cold temperatures. The sudden cold brought the trees to their senses and their leaves to the point of finally turning color. Though there wasn’t any precipitation the last couple of days, it has remained interesting in the sky. All in all, it has been a welcome and overdue change to fall and from sunrise to sunset, it has been absolutely glorious the last couple of days.

A quick look at conditions give some idea of just how spectacular it has been:

Fresh snow blows off the upper flanks of Mount Shasta. 

Hints of a lenticular cling to Mount Shasta’s summit.

I wasn’t sure which of these was better:

One has better color and light, the other better framing. Either way, having some gold aspens in the same frame as Mount Shasta is always a welcome autumn treat. There aren’t many aspens at this elevation, unfortunately. Thankfully these are easy to get to and usually have pretty good color.

The moon is waxing gibbous and was unlooked for but a welcome addition to the evening.

A spectacular sunset and moonrise on Mount Shasta. 

The forecast is calling for rain and snow over the next few days. November really began suddenly but has continued to bless us. I am hopefully optimistic this will continue and we will have a great winter!

Alpenglow illuminates a freshly snow-covered Mount Shasta. 

October flew by here in Mount Shasta and the month was generally warm and dry. Though pleasant, the month did not bring much snow for the mountain or relief for the dry conditions that have prevailed over the region for a while now. Thankfully, a short storm passed through the area and left a little snow on Mount Shasta, most of which was melted off within a few days.

One of the last sunrises of October 2022 on Mount Shasta reveals a little fresh snow.

It wasn’t much but at least October could account for some snow on the mountain. It was nearly a miss but at the end of the month, it could still be said that it snowed on Mount Shasta in October. The month came to an end auspiciously, for there appeared to be a sustained period of rain at the beginning of November. This appeared to be the case on the morning of the 1st, with rain coming down steadily. However, by mid-morning, the rain suddenly turned to snow. This was unexpected and, at first, I thought it was going to be brief but the snow continued until several inches had built up.

My backyard in fall: green leaves, yellow leaves, green grass and snow.

The snow took everyone by surprise but I was certainly grateful for this help that came unlooked for. With many more days of precipitation in the forecast, it seems like we might be getting a solid start to what I hope will be a very good winter. One can only pray.

Castle Spire (aka Battle Rock) rises above clouds settling in the Little Castle Creek drainage.

The snow was pretty thick down to about 3,000 feet. It seemed to have made it as far north as Edgewood and Lake Shastina too. This was a pretty impressive amount of snow for what was supposed to be some rain. May it continue for months to come!

Alpenglow fades on Mount Shasta’s fresh layer of November snow.

October has turned out to be a fairly pleasant month, with nice temperatures and plenty of sunshine…just the thing you don’t want when trying to get a good photographic start to autumn. What you want, at least before the nice weather, is a storm or two to shoot through the area. The storms fill the sky with drama, leave the mountain white and the colder temperature get the trees’ leaves changing color. None of this  occurred and it seemed like summer’s last days continued to stretch long and longer into the month. I began to wonder if it would even precipitate at all this month, which would break any chances of the record I have been keeping an eye on.

Those fears were finally put to rest over the weekend and a storm finally arrived and along with it, significantly lower temperatures. It was great. Fall has finally arrived. I will miss the nice weather but I love the meteorological pyrotechnics, the white mountain, the golden leaves and the feeling of the ebb of the year too much to miss it too much. I am glad to finally be in autumn.

A day before the storm, Mount Shasta still had small pockets of snow from September’s storm clinging to clefts high on the mountain.

Halfway through the storm, the clouds rolled back a bit and it was obvious that Mount Shasta finally got some snow!

Sunrise lights up the clouds on Mount Shasta, another stately dawn on the lonely mountain.

In truth, the storm was not big and the snow just a dusting but with the lower temps, it is not going away anytime soon. There is more precipitation on the way too, so it looks like fall really did finally show up! Here’s to the coming winter. May it be a good one!

The Old Ski Bowl on Mount Shasta, with a light glaze of fresh, late summer snow.

I have found that writing posts on here has been a bit of a challenge in recent years. When I first started the site, I wrote extensively about the trails, the geography and many hidden things in the area. Over time though, my philosophy has changed significantly and I find that I wrote less and less about hidden places around Mount Shasta and then nearly not at all. The internet is to dangerous and too untrustworthy to entrust those places yet undiscovered. Nonetheless, I love writing about the mountain. With such a diminished palette of grist for my writing, I feel that I have often become a weather reporter, just commenting on the current conditions. It is with this in mind, that I offer up, yet another post of such an ilk, and yet, despite its unoriginal and repetitive nature, I still enjoy sending it out into the digital universe, if for no other reason than to document Mount Shasta’s grandeur, beauty and call to those who seek such things.

Before proceeding to such a written endeavor, I do want to say that I am rededicating myself, so much as possible, to writing some original content about Mount Shasta, the region’s geography and history and a sprinkling of philosophy. I hope that all such will be, in some way, related to hiking and enjoying this incredible area.

With that said, I want to report the conditions from this past Saturday, which was roughly a week after the preponderance of the snow fell on the mountain. The lowest, thinnest strata had already melted off but the higher elevations still had a fair amount left, clinging to rocks and crags and hiding in the shady nooks the are ubiquitous on the mountain. My mother-in-law was visiting and so we took her up to the Old Ski Bowl, which I was amazed to learn, we had never done before. After enjoying a picnic dinner, the kids scrambled up on the rocks while I wondered to a somewhat more isolated spot to photograph the sunset light on the mountain while it still had some snow. I was glad to have the opportunity to do so, for it proved to be another beautiful Mount Shasta sunset.

As the sun set, the light disappeared off of the Old Ski Bowl itself but continued to linger on Sargents Ridge. Shastarama Point and the crags below Thumb Rock (which I tend to call The Fingers). The snow was sparser than it had been the day before but still provided a nice white canvas for the light to dance on.

“The Fingers”, which are just below Thumb Rock (not visible).

Shastarama Point

The various crags, as well as the numerous rock strata that make up Sargents Ridge, glowed warmly as the light began to fade away. The alpenglow enhanced the already red rock, deepening the color significantly.

Looking away from the mountain, I normally find myself drawn to the view south, where the entwined ridges lining the canyon of the Sacramento River for a pleasing array that lead the eye to distant mountains to the south (namely Shasta Bally, Bully Choop and the high peaks of the Yolla Bolly Mountains). However, this night, the conditions were such that I was more impressed with the view west, where the high crags of the Trinity Alps formed a jagged horizon against the orange sky.

As the final bit of light faded from the sky, the sun had sunk low enough for Mount Eddy to cast faint shadows into the colorful sky. It was a great end to a beautiful sunset. More than that, it was a reminder that even a mundane evening with my family can still lead to exceptional sights.

Mount Shasta is white once again.

In a month that opened with fire and smoke, it is gratifying to see it approaching its end with rain and snow. That is exactly how it has been this September in Mount Shasta. The Mill and Mountain fires sprang up just a few days into summer’s final month and within a week, they seemed to be out. However, the Mountain Fire, egged on by powerful winds, jumped the containment lines and erupted into another dangerous conflagration. It was not a great run through the first half of the month.

Thankfully, the fires were eventually quelled and conditions improved considerably. The air finally cleared and things returned to something approaching normal:

From the west, Mount Shasta was almost entirely free of snow.

From the northeast, some of Mount Shasta’s glaciers were visible. Many features, including bergschrunds, crevasses and seracs could all be seen since no snow obscured them.

Then an amazing thing happened: the temperatures dropped and a wave of wet weather rolled through the region. Rain poured down in great quantities and, with colder temperatures prevailing, a fair amount of snow fell on Mount Shasta. A little snow even fell on Mount Eddy! Overnight, the conditions on the mountain looked quite different!

The change was dramatic, to say the least. Although a bare Mount Shasta has its own beauty, particularly the warm red glow it gives off during sunset, it was marvelous to see the mountain returned to its wintery white glory.

This was not a light dusting of snow, as I have seen fall in past late September storms. This was a real midwinter style storm, leaving several inches of snow on the mountain. At higher elevations, one would have thought it December or January, rather than the final days of summer.

The temperatures were low, but not low enough to bring much snow anywhere other than Mount Eddy. Though it snowed down to a 1,000 feet or so below the summit, it was just a light dusting and most melted off quickly. I was only able to capture the last remnants of it near the top of the mountain.

Clouds continued to sweep over the area and rain fell sporadically after the first, heaviest wave came through. More rain fell, augmenting the snow higher up on the mountain. The entire affair culminated with a glorious thunderstorm and a great, though brief, deluge. Now the weather is turning warmer again and it looks like autumn is going to make a magnificent appearance. Rabbit brush is blooming, some trees are starting to turn color and the mountain is white, at least for a time. If nothing else, it is keeping the snow streak alive for another month.

All in all, fall is arriving and it is a great time to be in Mount Shasta.

Smoky haze at sunset leaves Mount Shasta a purple silhouette. 

It’s been a week since the Mill and Mountain Fires began. Thankfully, it has been a fairly staid week, with little growth from either fire. For the preponderance of the week, the air quality was such that one could be forgiven for even forgetting that there a fire in the neighborhood. For this we should all be profoundly grateful.

A recap: Friday, around noon, the Mill Fire brook out at the mill in Weed. It quickly swept north, burning through neighborhoods and into the grass and oak covered hills that lie at the margins of the Shasta Valley. Firefighters pounced on the fire in earnest and though it burned into the Lake Shastina community, it was held there. By nightfall, the ultimate boundaries of the fire had been achieved and it would not grow anymore.

Meanwhile, later that afternoon a second conflagration was sparked along Gazelle Callahan Road. Dubbed the Mountain Fire, it too sent a large plume upward, mirroring the plume from the Mill Fire. This fire, however, was burning in generally unpopulated territory, but had plenty of fuel to consume. It seemed to be of dubious origins.

After that Friday night, the Mill Fire was essentially over but the Mountain Fire continued to burn in the mountains on the western edge of the Shasta Valley. However, it never seemed to expand very much after its rapid expansion the first night. Sunday evening, I headed out to Truchas Ridge to continue some ongoing work there but I took the time to observe the smoky conditions and see what could be seen of the fire:

Overall, I was surprised with how little smoke was billowing up out of the Mountain Fire. Though the valley was filled with smoke, there was little actually being produced by the fire. It seemed that the fire’s fury had faded and was starting to moderate.

By Tuesday morning much of the smoke had cleared out of the valley. Some haze still lingered, but it was mostly focused over the site of the Mill Fire. Though the fire was essentially out, enough still smoldered that a pall still hung over where the fire had happened.

Meanwhile, the Mountain Fire was continuing its slow stall in activity. Smoke still hung over the area, but it had hardly filtered down to the Shasta Valley and no large plumes were visible against the blue sky at this time. It really did seem to be slowing down.

At the Weed airport, the entire facility had been converted into a helibase. There were nearly two dozen aircraft based there, with all their support teams as well. Offices and command facilities had been brought in and located right on the airfield. It was an impressive operation.

Click on this panorama and enlarge it to see some of the large firefighting helicopters at the base.

By Wednesday morning, the conditions were getting cloudy, with a little bit of rain and some lightning. It was still hot, but the weather seemed to continue holding the fire in check.

A dramatic sight over the Mountain Fire. 

Looking up at the Mountain Fire, storm clouds brewed at sunrise. Smoke still hung over the area, but it seemed a light rain was falling over the fire area. Though there were a few drops in the valley, there wasn’t much in the flatlands. It was almost enough to make me think no rain was falling, however, I spotted rainbows over the mountains, which confirmed that rain was, indeed, falling.

I wasn’t able to catch the rainbows over Mountain Fire area but I did catch one over Mount Eddy.

Wednesday continued to be overcast, with dramatic clouds over all the mountains throughout the day. While still hot, it never felt overbearing and was pleasant throughout the afternoon. Evening proved to be spectacular.

The clouds, which had been present all day, finally thinned and formed a glorious crown over Mount Shasta. For having almost snow on the west side, the mountain still presented a proud, purplish glow at sunset. The sunset was such that it made one forget about the fire completely, if only for a few minutes.

The next couple days were still hot, but the Mountain Fire seemed to be done growing. It has not grown in days and is, at the time of this writing, 55% contained. Lord willing, this will hold.

The Mill and Mountain Fires in relation to Mount Shasta (east) and the Scott Valley (west).

Temperatures into next week will moderate significantly, as we seem to be sliding into some glorious autumn weather. There is even a chance of precipitation next week. May it be so!