keep Shasta weird

Day 93 ~ zero in Mt. Shasta

Typical day off, full of chores and food, thunderstorms, and  live music, in the very eccentric town of Mt. Shasta. And new shoes for me, also.  I've completely outgrown my old shoes (which are a size bigger than I normally wear).  With increased miles and serious heat, my feet are swelling out of control!  Post-storm, the music and plentiful dancing attendees at a free summer concert series in the City Park kept us very entertained.  Eventually, we moved up front and joined the dancers, as we moved to the music at the base of the magical mountain, shrouded in clouds. Mt. Shasta has been so friendly, with a great vibe, but also with a wonderful weirdness about it.

learning about Lemuria

Day 92 ~ miles 1489.6 - 1506.5

Town day!  We've been really excited about our stop in the town of Mt. Shasta; we've heard it's a neat place.  We were afforded with views of the mountain that is its namesake for much of the day.  The trail has cut to the West, so we were able to view Shasta from a different vantage point.  Some say you can see a sleeping lady on top,  in the contours of the mountain; today was the first we saw of her.  A rattler a couple of feet off the trail startled us early this morning; a little adrenaline definitely helps you wake up!

The miles went quickly and by early afternoon we were at the road.  We walked a little over 2 miles, eating loads of roadside blackberries along the way, to a small market in the town of Castella.  Our plan was to camp in Castella, at the Castle Crags State Park campground, and head to Mt. Shasta in the morning.  First, we needed some sustenance: ice cream and soda. 

A picnic table sat across the parking lot from the market, and we strolled over to find out which hikers were sitting at it.  Quickly, we realized that the people at the table were not thru-hikers, but young drifters.  They claimed to be living off the land,  which included hiker boxes, and had big knives on their sides.  Last night, they'd killed and eaten a rattlesnake; they had put the snakeskin on a tree branch, which they shook in our faces, along with the separated rattle.  It was an interesting crew, and whether they intended to be or not, they were quite entertaining.

The Castle Crags campground was our next stop, half a mile.down the road. Us and Thor and Ferntoe had the hiker site all to ourselves.  We attended a ran ger presentation on Mt. Shasta, the volcanic mountain,that covered climbing the mountain and the culture and folklor surrounding the pinnacle (if you're bored, Google "Lemurians").

We'll be off to the town of Mt. Shasta tomorrow!

a search for the "pool"

Day 89 ~ miles 1423.5 - 1445.1

We'd stayed up last night a little later than usual, hanging out with other hikers at the state park, but we still managed to rise early.  It was a super hot day, and swimming was definitely in order.  The guidebook pointed out a "pool" as part of a stream that we would hit around lunchtime, perfect.  When we arrived to the unsuspecting spot with Thor and Ferntoe right behind us, we wandered around in search of this "pool" that we thought would have been pretty obvious.  A diagram pointed us in the right direction, but all we found was basically a mud puddle.  Disappointment soon set in as we all realized that the pool didn't exist.  A shady spot was quickly found, where we all ate together and joked about the "pool".

We hiked on into the afternoon, as storm and rain clouds threatened, and made our way to a campsite listed on our maps.  It turned out that there really wasn't much of a campsite, just a forest service road.  Campsites were really slim due to logging slash covering the forest floor, so we reluctantly setup right by the road with a great view of Mt. Shasta, where Thor and Ferntoe joined, as well as another hiker.  We watched as the sun set and cast a strange shadow from the mysterious mountain: a perfect prism of
darkness, coming from the very top of the mountain.  None of us had ever seen anything like it; we are very intrigued by Mt. Shasta and all of the lore that surrounds it, we hope to learn more about it soon.