Thursday’s storm clouds clear as the sun sets on Mount Shasta.
It seemed for a time that summer had kicked off in the latter half of April and flower right into May. Despite that, the last couple of weeks here in Mount Shasta have been exceptionally wet. There has been ample rain and even some snow at higher elevations. As we move into Memorial Day weekend, we are thankfully moving out of this stormy weather pattern and into warmer, sunnier weather. The forecast still calls for some rain on Sunday and some thunderstorms next week but the trend is finally moving in the right direction.
The sunset on Thursday night was a welcome one, the mountain finally being visible, for the most part. It has been a few days since the the sky was clear enough to see the mountain for an extended period of time. Even so, the clearing clouds blocked most of the alpenglow from setting the mountain to color. Fortunately, the clouds themselves captured a lot of the light and made for a spectacular sunset regardless of the mountain’s color.
Now that we are moving into a time that ought to bring consistently good days to get outside, it is time to start looking around at some of the conditions. While my daughter was in her dance classes, I was able to pop over to the Lake Siskiyou inlet, where the Sacramento River enters the lake. Right now the lake is exceedingly full. This is naturally a result of the swollen river flowing into it. The river itself is filled by both rain and melting snow. Based on the current conditions, I suspect it is going to be a while before the seasonal bridges are installed and the loop around the lake is completed. Fortunately, there are still a number of excellent trails to hike while the snow melts and the water level drops a bit.
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