During the last round of weather, Mount Shasta was lost in the clouds. Both sides of the mountain were equally blanketed by the storm. Nothing seemed off when, in the morning, I headed up towards Castle Lake and watched the sunrise from the great perch up there.
Though the clouds were pretty, with a lenticular threatening to manifest high over the summit and a band of turbulent clouds racing through the valley between my location and Mount Shasta, the sun never produced any vivid color during the sunrise. It was still beautiful and I was glad to be up there. The mountain itself had some fresh snow covering its flanks for at few thousand feet below the summit.
At closer inspection, below the snow level there was another layer of ice. Given its location and its thin appearance, I figured it to be rime ice, formed by freezing bits of cloud as the cloud cover clung to the slopes. It may not have been as magnificent as the rime ice display from back in December but it still added a little more texture to the mountain.
All in all, not a bad morning, but certainly nothing particularly noteworthy. I continued on with my day, which ultimately led me over to Scott Valley for the afternoon.
While driving to Scott Valley, I was dealing with kids and had not paid a lot of attention to the conditions on Mount Shasta’s north side. However, while driving back, the mountain is a looming presence and cannot be avoided. I was struck at how white it was in contrast to the southwestern side visible from Castle Lake.
Though the snow was thin and the white of the glaciers augmented what fell in the storm, Mount Shasta was solidly white all the way down to the tree line. I had not anticipated such a display, as the north side of Mount Shasta, being on the edge of the rain shadow, typically gets less snow than the mountain’s other sides. This time was different and the unusual conditions seemed to vindicate the arrival of autumn, when the weather turns turbulent and unpredictable. We will have to wait to see what the mountain has in store for us next!