On the way we stopped at a small town called McCloud.
Since leaving Lassen we have been firmly in Lumber Country. Although some gold mining happened here it has been lumber that has shaped the economy and the lives of the people who live here.
Burney, McCloud, Shasta City and Weed are all lumber towns, although the industry is now much a smaller employer than in the past it has had a significant effect on the town layout and communications.
So having decided to stop in McCloud for a morning coffee/tea we left the highway and cruised through the town, past the beautiful PollyAnna style clapperboard houses and trim gardens with white picket fences and parked by the now defunct railroad built to haul lumber. At the railhead is a small tourist community with coffee and gift shops. We chose the Mountain View Café (as we sat in a window booth we could see Mt Shasta looming in the distance), here we had a great welcome, a pleasant drink and a very nice Apple Crisp Muffin. After a short walk on the covered sidewalk and a long chat to some of the locals we got underway again. The road took us round the base of Mt Shasta.
Mt Shasta dominates this area in every way. It is volcano which has erupted roughly every 450 years for the last 5000 years. It is a single mountain which rises to 14,100ft. The surrounding area is made up of igneous rocks, volcanoes, lava flows, basalt extrusions, ash cones, etc, but none of them rise above 5000 ft. The area around Mt Shasta sits at about 4000ft, so the mountain rises a clear 10,000ft above the surrounding land. Mt Shasta has a double peak, Mt Shastina, a peak which only a little shorter. The whole mountain is permanently covered with snow and boasts 5 permanent glaciers. We first saw it at a distance of 120 miles and photographed it at Red Bluff, 114 miles away.
So having driven round Mt Shasta we arrived at our friends. Their house is just 7 miles from the peak of Mt Shasta, so we could see it very clearly against the bright blue sky of Northern California.
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