Dan's Outside

A Very Long Drive and a Brief Visit to Mount Shasta

No hiking this weekend – a long drive instead. I had some family business to attend to in Seattle, and it was business that required me to drive there rather than fly. I was able to leave the SF Bay Area a few minutes before 2:00 on Friday afternoon and make it as far as Grants Pass, Oregon that night, finishing the rest of the drive by mid-afternoon on Saturday.

The weather reports from the Seattle area are true – snow, though not deep, is everywhere. I saw it on the ground everywhere as soon as I climbed Siskiyou Pass at the California/Oregon border, and the temperature stayed below freezing the whole time I was in Oregon and Washington.

Having limited time and being somewhat prone to epic drives, I chose to drive all the way back to the Bay Area from Seattle… on Monday. I left before dawn and returned home after 11:00 p.m. I had my iPod and I listened to all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, a few hours of various local radio stations, two hour plus podcasts, and quite a bit of other music.

And, of course, there was no hiking for me this weekend. Between the driving and my (family) business in Seattle I had little free time. My one brief escape was to drive east on a small dirt road north of Mount Shast on the way home, where I found an a stark landscape offering an interesting perspective on the north side of the peak as the sun set.

Mount Shasta and Frozen Pond, Evening. January 15, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell. (Sales)

Mount Shasta and Gate, Twilight. Northern California. January 15, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell. (Sales)

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January 16, 2007 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Places