sunset

Lenticular Interrupted

Posted by bubbasuess on November 30, 2025
Posted in: Cascade Range, Desert, Hiking, Lenticular Clouds, Mount Shasta, Shasta Valley, sunset. 3 Comments

A couple days after Thanksgiving, we were finally blessed with a spectacular lenticular display over Mount Shasta. Autumn is typically one of the best seasons for these epic formations in the sky but this year, much like the last couple of years, there hasn’t been much lenticular presence, let alone any big spectacular ones. That unfortunate streak has finally come to an end.

The heart of the formation was a massive lenticular stack above the summit of Mount Shasta. It caught the morning light in terrific fashion. It didn’t have much purple but it pulsated with pink and orange light. The intricate layers, each nestled one within the other, the shadows and dark clouds only serving to highlight the shape of the next strata of the cloud. This is the kind of lenticular one waits all season for.

Unfortunately, after capturing images of it at sunrise, I was immediately off to head up Christmas tree sales at the boy scout lot. Fortunately, this is a fun and worthwhile endeavor and even though I was missing the lenticular, I knew I was investing my time well. After three days of sales, we only have 92 trees left. If you want a great red fir (silvertip) Christmas tree that was wild caught on the east side of Mount Shasta, come by our lot next Saturday!

After closing the lot up no long before sunset, I headed home. The Christmas tree sales interruption now over, I would have tried to go immediately to get images of the lenticular blazing with the colors of alpenglow but I was in my truck, towing my large trailer I had been using to restock the tree lot. It wasn’t conducive to chasing images of the mountain and cloud. I did force myself to stop and just capture an image from the road for posterity. The lenticular wasn’t as large as it had been but it still presented a fascinating view.

After dropping my truck off and heading out into the Shasta Valley, I got to a decent vantage point just as the colors really flared up. Pinks and purples filled the sky and the mountain itself glowed in the reflected color of the setting sun. It was a spectacular end to a busy day. I hope we have many more lenticulars in the near future!

This time lapse captures a dramatic perspective on the lifespan of the lenticular over Mount Shasta. The way it is in constant flux, churning and roiling as the day progresses is amazing. I have been waiting a while for one of these. This Thanksgiving I am thankful one finally came (among many other things).

Last Sunset Of July 2025

Posted by bubbasuess on August 3, 2025
Posted in: Cascade Range, Hiking, Mount Shasta, Shasta Valley, sunset. 1 Comment

In the past summer months in Mount Shasta are months for getting up into the high country and enjoying the alpine landscapes and sublime natural settings. Generally, they were not great months for enjoying the views of the mountain in spectacular weather conditions (which is often the key to capturing great images). July 2025 was certainly an outlier for that trend. The continuous stream of thunderstorms made the month memorable and numerous images were captured, highlighting awesome clouds and beautiful light augmented by the dramatic presence of lightning and rainbows. This trend continued right up to the very last sunset of the month, which was once again a spectacular one.

As with the last thunderstorm a few days earlier, there were more rainbows to be had. Mount Shasta was partially covered by cloud and not well lit but the rainbow was excellent and the light and cloud around it made for a rather sublime scene. The position of the clouds made the Shasta Valley seem like the best option for a good sunset.

By the time I got out to the valley, the clouds had opened up and fresh snow from the previous day was visible on Mount Shasta’s highest elevations. Even more interesting, however, was the enormous shadow being cast by something somewhere in the west. The clouds pulsated with color as they churned but no light touched the vast shadow.

Soon the shadow seemed to expand and the clouds turned very, very dark. At the same time Mount Shasta and the hills of the Shasta Valley glowed orange from the setting sun. The sunset color seemed to drench everything and a most surreal feeling permeated the landscape.

Though the glow on the ground continued, the clouds finally lit back up as the sun sank lower beneath the horizon. The brooding clouds looked ready to burst open with a deluge for the desert valley. Meanwhile, lightning continue to flash off to the south behind the mountain. Thunder could be heard faintly in the distance. It was an unusual sight and the perfect stormy ending to a magnificent month of storms.

August looks to be warming up. We’ll see if the higher temps last and it is finally time to abandon the desert and head up into the high country.

Three Days Of Fireworks (Before The 4th)

Posted by bubbasuess on July 12, 2025
Posted in: Cascade Range, Echo Point, Hiking, Mount Shasta, sunset, Truchas Ridge. 2 Comments

Thunderheads build over Mount Shasta.

Like the beginning of June, July opened up with some thunderstorms. However, while the ones in the previous month yielded some great clouds and the booms of thunder, it paled in comparison to the ones the ushered out June and welcomed us to July. Whatever excellent fireworks were on display on the 4th of July were dwarfed by the natural pyrotechnics. Indeed, this was probably the most spectacular lightning display I have witnessed in the Mount Shasta area.

Things started quickly during the day, with clouds spreading out to the north towards Oregon and massive storm clouds building over Mount Shasta.

In the late afternoon, massive plumes rose over the west side of the Shasta Valley. The clouds themselves were pretty amazing but watching the strange shadows cast by the billowing towers added to their fascination. These harbingers really elevated my expectations for the forecasted storm that evening.

Eventually the storm came and the thunder rumbled but overall, it ultimately left me wanting more. The rain was very light and the lightning was minimal. However, the clouds were still copious, but left little room for light to really make things interesting. Mount Shasta was left in shadow. However, west of Black Butte an opening in the clouds allowed the light of the setting sun to blast through and light the landscape up. It was the most dramatic sight of the day.

Hopeful that the eruption of sunlight might mean a better sunset from the north, I raced into the valley but the mountain had very little light on it. Though disappointing, I watched with envy at the color scene on the western horizon. You can’t always get the best light by the mountain but it was a colorful end to June.

The next, day the storm clouds built throughout the day but the afternoon brought conditions that shocked me. The forecast made it look like the next day was the bigger storm but the wind was powerful and it felt like something massive was brewing. Mount Shasta was visible throughout, but the clouds swirled around the summit throughout the evening.

This video shows how rapidly the storm built and the dramatic way Mount Shasta was swallowed up by the storm and the rain surged out of the clouds.

When the storm finally peaked, the lightning was fast and came down all around. I saw it hit multiple peaks around Mount Shasta. When it came, the rain also came hard and lasted well into the night. This was good, because the lightning was so abundant it doubtless would have started numerous fires. This was definitely not going to be the case given how much precipitation came down.

In the midst of this storm the setting sun burst through the cloud and lit everything up in magnificent fashion. Oddly enough, Mount Shasta was still dark, untouched by the explosion of light. Mount Eddy was bathed in purple while it was a flaming orange further to the north.

Even in the midst of the light of the setting sun, the lightning continued to flash and I was able to capture some of it while getting images of Mount Eddy in the stormy alpenglow. It was all really amazing.

July 2nd was the last day forecasted to have thunderstorms and true to this expectation, the storm grew throughout the day. However, unlike the previ0us days’ storms, the focus was south of Mount Shasta, rather than north of it.

This meant that the afternoon deluge was focused on the south side of the mountain. The result was the western position of the sun yielding fantastic rainbows around Mount Shasta. I have tried to get shots of the mountain with rainbows for years and I think these were the best ones I have been able to capture. This alone would have meant the storm had given me high rewards. Everything after this was just icing on the cake!

I headed out into the Shasta Valley once again. The rainbow, now visible over Black Butte, was finally fading when I got there.

Even though the rainbow was gone, the clouds continued to swirl around Mount Shasta. This meant awesome shadows sailing across the landscape, providing a lot of visual interest around the mountain.

Heading up to Echo Point, I watched the clouds finally fade away and the sun light up Mount Shasta, brining a close to 3 epic days of storms. The alpenglow on the mountain marked the closing moments, capping an awesome lead of to the fireworks of Independence Day.

A (Beautiful) Menace In The Sky

Posted by bubbasuess on June 10, 2025
Posted in: Cascade Range, Desert, Hiking, Mount Shasta, Shasta Valley, sunset. 6 Comments

It is pretty obvious from a quick perusal of this site that I am a huge fan of cloud activity. The landscape is the canvas but atmospherics and light are the paints that make the image on the canvas special. Perhaps it is the fleeting aspect of the clouds and light in tension with the interminable constant of the landscape that I find so captivating.

The 9th of June was witness to some epic cloud activity in the sky over Mount Shasta. It wasn’t lenticulars or some other odd spectacle in the sky. This time it was a classic thunderstorm, but one in which the clouds were overwhelmingly magnificent in both scale and arrangement. Naturally, I had to get out and document it in the midst of all the other things I needed to get done.

This time lapse taken from a fire alert camera shows the incredible growth and maturation of the storm. Watching the clear skies fill with brooding towers and then seeing those swallowed up by the thunderstorms is rather startling. Some other highlights come at the end, when the setting sun finds some breaches in the moving clouds and the beams of sunset light can be seen traveling across the Shasta Valley and Mount Shasta. Missing from the time lapse were lightning strikes and rainbows, both of which were visible from the valley floor. Regardless, it is an awesome bit of footage.

Though I wanted to get out earlier, I wasn’t able to break away until just after noon. By that time the clouds had expanded to a massive tower above Mount Shasta and were starting to extend northward in a tumultuous sheet.

Heading north into the Shasta Valley to get a different perspective, the size of the thunderheads forming over the mountain were humbling. Considering the mountain looms nearly 12,000 feet over the Shasta Valley, these clouds were easily 30,000 feet high.

As the sunset approached, I headed back out into the valley. Though it was my planned destination, I opted not to go to Truchas Ridge this time. I stopped short in order to capture a fleeting rainbow that appeared over Black Butte. It had not been raining when I had come from Mount Shasta, so the precipitation bringing the rainbow had to have just started.

The rainbow faded quickly, but was promptly followed by the sunset light racing across the valley. The sun had nearly set and the low angle of the light found a gap in the clouds that allowed it to shine on Mount Shasta and the hills of the valley. The movement of the clouds and the sun’s rapid descent meant the light moved quickly across the landscape. I was hoping the clouds would light up but it was not to be. Nonetheless, the sailing light was a magnificent sight to witness.

Finally, the sun well below the horizon, only Mount Shasta and some nearby clouds had any of the fading color left on them. In the midst of this, the storm continued, intensifying over the Whaleback. A few bolts of lightning streaked down. I think one hit Ash Creek Butte. I wasn’t fast enough to capture any of them. It left me wanting a bit but the entire sequence of events in the sky was pretty hard to be ungrateful for. It was tremendous.

 

Blooming But Burning In Mount Shasta

Posted by bubbasuess on May 23, 2025
Posted in: Cascade Range, Echo Point, Hiking, Mount Shasta, Shasta Valley, sunset, Truchas Ridge. 2 Comments

Spring at Truchas Ridge in the Shasta Valley.

Yikes, things just fly out of control sometimes. School is out and the summer travel season has started earlier than normal. The end of the school year brought a lot of other changes quickly, some welcome, some not. Chief among them has been the weather, which has been gorgeous. Spring has been glorious, especially in the Shasta Valley. However, there has been some unexpected peril…

The southern exposure of the hills around the valley are exploding with bright yellow flowers. These are the common woolly sunflower and they really brighten the arid landscape of the valley nicely.

As lush as it is, it is nowhere near as explosive as the growth was last year. It was sort of a superbloom last year, with flowers, grasses and other kinds of growth nearly choking the landscape in a green blanket. Fortunately, the incredible amount of snow that fell in February flattened all the grass down and let the land recover a little.

Though the winter wasn’t as heavy as the previous two or three, this year the water has been high in the valley, with numerous lakes filling basins that have been dry for years. Some used to be filled for years but for the last decade they have been sporadic at best and typically not full. For reasons yet to be determined, this year these lakes have all been quite full. It is a great addition to the landscape!

Through all of this, Mount Shasta has risen in solitary splendor over the valley. There has been some interesting weather but nothing too dramatic. While the landscape may be lush and the water high, the skies have been fairly tame, with a few lenticulars thrown in but nothing particularly dramatic.

Instead, the drama sprang from the most unexpected place: Spring Hill. Reported around 9pm on May 19th, the fire spread quickly around the western flank of the small butte that hems in the northern side of Mount Shasta City. The flames were dramatic in the dark of night and the glow was eerie. Naturally I had to pull out my camera and document the the conflagration. However, it was infuriating being unable to help control the flames.

As awful as the fire seemed while it was blazing, amazingly the next morning it seemed as though far less ground had burned than I had though. This was a sentiment shared by many friends who had also observed the flames. I think it was because the night highlights the flames while no landmarks are visible to provide a frame of reference.

The worst of the damage is visible from the northwest. However, even here there are more green trees and unburned brush than I would have expected. In a few years, I am willing to guess that manzanita will already be encroaching again.

From the south, the damage was less obvious. The most noticeable result of the fire was the break cut in with a tractor. We had watched the bulldozer’s lights as it moved up the Spring Hill Trail until it was near the fire. No doubt the trail will have to be rehabbed after the damage necessarily inflicted upon it.

The day after the fire, crews were still visible dousing the flames. This was made easier by the presence of a well at the summit of Spring Hill (at least I am assuming they are using the well, otherwise it would be a long way to run their hoses up there).

In the end, the fire wasn’t as destructive as it looked like it would be. Nonetheless, it was a sober reminder that even in the lush spring months fire is still a danger in this dry climate.

A Quality Autumn Lenticular

Posted by bubbasuess on November 13, 2024
Posted in: Cascade Range, Hiking, Lenticular Clouds, Mount Shasta, sunset. 1 Comment

It has been a beautiful autumn with great weather and fall color. However, the one things lacking have been great lenticulars, the presence of which typically increases this time of year. This past weekend a beautiful formation manifested just before sunset. The sky had been overcast all day and it seemed unlikely that there would be a colorful sunset to compliment the excellent cloud. Fortunately, things aligned just right and we got the most spectacular sunset Mount Shasta has had in a while.

Though the kind of clouds that sit on the summit are not my favorite, this one was just high enough to allow most of Mount Shasta to be visible. It also had numerous layers, both focused on the summit and some spreading out over the entire area above the treeline. When the setting sun was below the western horizon, the angle was just right for the light to pass beneath the cloud layer and it lit both Mount Shasta and the lenticular up with a blazing orange light. It was an epic sight.

Even as the sunlight faded on Mount Shasta, the sky itself turned pink and purple. This caused the light to bounce around a bit, illuminating the entire landscape in a warm red glow. The oak trees, already yellow, smoldered in a deep red, marking the entire image as indelibly autumn-ish. It was fantastic and I was glad to have witnessed it from this particular vantage point (one I have been spending a lot of time at, but for reasons that may be revealed soon).

Though there were no lenticulars above Black Butte, the sky was gorgeous and worth pausing to appreciate as well.

On the way home, things still glowed purple and as I rounded Deadman’s Curve, I could see Mount Eddy looming above Kaiser Meadow. I wasn’t quick enough to capture the warm glow but, though that light faded quickly, I did manage to document the beautiful sky above the highest peak in the Klamath Mountains.

Now, as I write this, what maybe the first major storm of the winter is rolling through the area. It is expected to deposit several inches of snow on Mount Shasta, all the way down to 5,000 feet. We need a few more of these to really get winter going, but this is a great start!

Yosemite And Shasta After

Posted by bubbasuess on November 11, 2024
Posted in: Cascade Range, Hiking, Lenticular Clouds, Mount Shasta, Sierra Nevada, sunset, Yosemite. 3 Comments

It’s been a busy few weeks here in Mount Shasta. Autumn is at its beautiful peak and the end of the year events have already begun (we cut 155 Christmas trees last weekend!). The business has been compounded by not actually being in Mount Shasta part of the time. With fall getting into full-swing, I took my family down to Yosemite in the hopes of enjoying some fall color and warm weather. We were, to some degree, awarded with both.

Unfortunately, we were a little early for great color, but the oaks were starting to turn yellow, adding just a little interest to the scenery. Interestingly, the dogwoods at the west end of the valley were in excellent fall form, turning the less-visited area vibrant gold. The real highlight was the autumn light. Its lower angle made everything glow.

The high country was where the color was really evident. From Washburn Point, we could look up Ilillouette Creek and see the trees turning gold. I shouldn’t think of it as an unusual sight, given the awesome fall color set against the towering spires of the eastern Sierra but the view from here, with the gold trees against the western slope of the Clark Range just seemed strange to me. It was beautiful nonetheless.

On the way down from Glacier Point, the sunset presented a glorious opportunity for a shot of Half Dome, El Capitan and Sentinel Rock. Yosemite just doesn’t disappoint.

On another day, we were up at Tuolumne Meadows. We stopped at Olmstead Point to watch the sunset. While the point has a good view of Half Dome and Clouds Rest the best views are from the dome above the point or the slabs below. We opted for the latter. From here we could look down on the small valley that leads to the rugged route down to the base of Pywiack Cascade. Now that is an adventure…

My family carried out various elements of dinner and my amazing wife made Chicken a la Nass, the best, easiest, most filling and convenient camp dinner ever. Great food with an incredible view. It does not get better than that! (email if you want to know what Chicken a la Nass is!)

A glorious sunset at the end of a great day. Yosemite was good to us this year.

We returned home to Mount Shasta to find autumn in full effect. The color was excellent and the fall weather changes led to interesting formations in the sky. The mountain had been turned white once again, meaning all the elements of my favorite time of year were in place.

The timing of our return was perfect and the beauty was evident right away. On the way to taking the kids to school, I had to stop a couple of times to document the terrific sunrise. This was not an amazing sunrise, but it was beautiful and felt like Mount Shasta was greeting our return home.

 

Election Day came and the spectacle on the mountain was great. Though the clouds that obscure the summit of Mount Shasta are not my favorite lenticulars, this one had nice layers, which added to its interest. The oak trees, to which we now have an…attachment, were nearing their peak and made a decent foreground to the cloud enshrouded volcano.

That evening, a second, semi-lenticular cloud had formed to the south. Though Mount Shasta was covered by the lenticular, the whole scene was magnificent, with the sky lit up in pinks and purples.

The days after Tuesday and through the following weekend were sunny and marked by gorgeous fall color and light. But now the rain has come and will remain, off and on, for several days. The color won’t last much longer and winter nears…

What October Has Been Up To In Mount Shasta

Posted by bubbasuess on October 20, 2024
Posted in: Cascade Range, Hiking, Lenticular Clouds, Mount Shasta, sunrise, sunset. 1 Comment

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.

An Augury Of Autumn

Posted by bubbasuess on September 26, 2024
Posted in: Cascade Range, Hiking, Lenticular Clouds, Mount Shasta, sunset. 3 Comments

In my last post, I hoped that the snow that came in August and September augured favorably for a good winter. Now, having just passed the autumnal equinox and officially entered fall, another sign appeared in the sky that, hopefully, points toward an eventful autumn and winter season (truth be told, at this point, any emphasis on signs is more a function of my son reading the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid for school). This time, seemingly out of nowhere, a fantastic lenticular appeared over Mount Shasta. The days have been warm, minimal cloud presence has been the norm and no precipitation is in sight. Nonetheless, the day was, at times, cloudy and the formation that developed over Mount Shasta was far more than anything I had anticipated. Though unexpected, it made for an exciting day in the sky.

When it began, there were clouds gathered over Mount Shasta but no sign of a lenticular forming. The thing that really interested me was the horizontal beams of light passing through the saddle between Green Butte Ridge and Jack Flat. It can be very dramatic if you time it right, especially if the summit of Green Butte cuts into the beam and casts its long shadow across the west face of Mount Shasta. This, plus the presence of blooming sage and the chokecherry turning gold made it feel like fall was indeed arriving.

Little did I know that, though the foliage was heralding the arrival of fall, so too was the spectacle over Mount Shasta. The clouds that had been present early on coalesced into a set of lenticulars. One small stack hovered over the summit while another massive cloud arched across the mountain higher in the sky. I could tell something interesting was afoot.

By the early afternoon the formation had tightened up considerably and now presented a single massive, layered set of discs over Mount Shasta. The small stack had collapsed and its cloudy detritus still lingered around Mount Shasta’s summit. This cloud looked like it had staying power and I was hopeful we were going to get a good sunset.

The late afternoon had gotten very overcast and the pall that hung over the sky nearly rendered the lenticular indistinguishable. However, I still headed out to see if, somehow, the sun would conquer the clouds and light things up as it set. When I got to a spot that I liked, Mount Shasta was nearly in shadow and the lenticular was lacking the distinct form it had had earlier in the day.

To my good fortune, as the sun set behind the Little Scott Mountains behind me, the light on Mount Shasta (and all the clouds too!) as well as the shape of the lenticular both improved. Further blessing this beautiful scene was the developing presence of a second, larger lenticular. It manifested out of a layer of cloud that had not given any hint of lenticular aspirations.

Now with both lenticular formations lighting up and the rest of the sky pulsing with alpenglow, it was an utterly magnificent sunset, the kind that makes one cheer the coming of the fall season and thank the Lord for the opportunity to witness such a grand performance. More of this all fall please!

As the scene to the east went dark, the show to the west was reaching its triumphal moment. I felt like a Roman general celebrating my own triumphal parade through the streets of the eternal city, witnessing the pinnacle of Roman glory. Yet in the midst of the revelry was the message being whispered in my ear “remember thou art mortal”. A scene like this makes one feel small and mortal, but in the healthiest of ways. This is the glory of the one far greater than I.

September’s Summer Snow

Posted by bubbasuess on September 21, 2024
Posted in: Cascade Range, Hiking, Mount Shasta, sunset. 5 Comments

I have lived in Mount Shasta for quite a while now and, as this blog will testify, I have made it a practice to watch the patterns of weather over the courses of the seasons. One of things I have noticed over the last few years is the increasing frequency of a storm to sail through the region and deposit a fair amount of snow on Mount Shasta in the latter half of September. This was true in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Of those three years, 2022 was the most impressive, looking almost wintery rather than a late-summer glazing. This year the trend escalated even further, with a near-wintery deposit of snow in August! The early arrival of the snow has not meant that September was ignored either. We have had one notable storm hit, and it did indeed leave more snow on the mountain in summer.

The night before the storm hit, I took the boy scout troop up to Heart Lake for a sunset hike. The timing, both date and time, was engineered to have good conditions for a sunset. However, with the storm gathering strength the skies were overcast and we resigned ourselves to hiking up even if the sunset side of things wasn’t really going to happen. As is sometimes the case, however, the overcast conditions amplify the beauty if the sun is able to slip under the cloud cover for just a moment or two and everything explodes with color. Such was the case this time, thankfully. After enjoying the magnificent display, we all happily hiked down in the dark. The storm was on its way.

While not as powerful as other September storms of the last few years, this one did leave its mark on Mount Shasta and the upper flanks were once again white. However, below 11,000 feet it really was just an icy glaze and that melted off the first day the clouds were gone. The thicker snow has hung on for the last 5 days. This was something of a surprise, since the temperature has climbed back up to the high 70’s and the snow didn’t seem that deep.

By Friday, much of the snow on the southern exposure of Mount Shasta had finally disappeared. However, the north side of the mountain managed to retain a fair amount of coverage at the higher elevations. For a relatively light amount of snow, for it to sustain for 5 plus days is impressive.

Now, as the autumnal equinox approaches and fall will well and truly begin, it is amazing to think that decent amounts of snow has fallen on Mount Shasta in both August and September. I hope that this augurs a good winter with plenty of snow!