Tag Archives: Mount Shasta

From sunrise to sunset.

September 25, 2022family, mountains, playbirthdays, dahlias, hot-air balloons, Mount Shasta, pieGretchenJoanna

On Saturday we left the house early to get to the hot air balloon festival before the sun came up. Smokey the Bear was the first to get inflated and lift off. This is the same event I attended with Pippin seven years ago, and most of the balloons were the same, too.

In the middle of the day we took naps, and tended the garden. That is, Pippin gardened and I took pictures.

Late afternoon we took the camp stove and makings for Frito Pie up on the volcanic peak of Mount Shasta, to the Old Ski Bowl, 7800 ft. elevation (The top is almost twice that high). We ate our picnic dinner and stayed for the sunset.

The children took me up a ways to a place among the rocks that they call the Sunset Cafe, and we pretend feasted on plates of salad, strawberry bread and chocolatey desserts, artfully arranged from whatever vegetable and mineral materials could be found lying nearby:

We gazed off toward the west…

And when it was starting to get dark, both Ivy and Jamie fell within about ten minutes of each other, and cried for a while in pain from the shock of sharp rocks slamming into knees and ribs. Jamie had tripped over the giant rock loaf of “strawberry bread.” But they were soon done with that and we set off down the mountain again.

Today was full. This is the first year Ivy didn’t have a themed cake, and the first year she helped make her birthday pie.

Everything has been delicious.

Looking at Shasta and lichens.

January 1, 2022family, naturejuniper, lichens, mosses, Mount Shasta, Northern CaliforniaGretchenJoanna

The thermometer hovered at the freezing point all day, everywhere we went. The places we explored, though, were out of the woods and piles of snow, in more arid expanses dotted with rocky hillocks and juniper trees.

The volcanic peak of Mount Shasta rose high above the rest of the land to the south. Closer to the ground, lichens and mosses grew thickly on rocks.

We ate a snacky lunch on the highest pile of boulders, and the children scrambled up and down and climbed rock faces with bare hands that eventually turned red and numb with cold.

I was surprised at how the slightest breeze cut right through my several layers of under and outer winter garments. It was so gorgeous, I wished we could have roamed for more hours. Maybe in another season.

We departed as the sun was going down and taking its tiny bit of warmth from us. The first day of 2022 had been pretty nice!

Oregon Trails Weekend

May 19, 2009family, travelbaseball, grandchildren, Mount ShastaGretchenJoanna

Over the weekend we drove north to see children and grandchildren. First there was a drive of many hours to arrive in time for a baseball game in which C. played Friday evening.

Next morning, following the ballet lesson of L., seven of us packed into the van to drive two more hours farther into Oregon for a double-header baseball game at Glide. The weekend was heavy with baseball.

Daisy chain bracelets are a nice ball field pastime.

After the games, we stopped by Colliding Rivers, where Little River and the North Umpqua have a head-on.

Then dinner, and driving, driving, so late that all the children and one grandpa were asleep when we got back.

And on Sunday, back down into Siskiyou County, CA and the beloved Mount Shasta. It so dominates one’s consciousness with drama and size–it’s no wonder people tend to think of it as magical and spiritual in itself.