Mt. Shasta Revisit and Waterfalls

Yesterday, before driving up to Mt. Shasta, we drove about 5 miles from the campground to see some waterfalls.  Not large ones by any means, but just pretty tucked in the forest.  There were 3 falls and each had its own parking and overlooks.  Two of them were indeed “watering holes”.  The first picture shows people swimming in the water above the falls.  There wasn’t a way back up from the bottom of the lower falls.  You could either hike or drive to the middle and upper falls.  The upper falls in the 3rd picture had a real nice swimming area at the base and people were taking full advantage.  Such a pretty setting.    

  

Then it was a 20 mile drive to explore the upper part of Mt. Shasta. The road wound through the forest and around the mountain.  It was a beautiful sky that gave a great backdrop for my pictures.   There are two major view points and this was the first one.  This was as far as we went in 2004 at the end of June because the rest of the road higher had not been cleared of snow.  No problem this year with the drought.   Plus, my furry little friend stopped by for a piece of cracker.  He was used to people because all I had to do was rattle the paper and there he was.

 

It was cooler at the top with a nice breeze.  Several hikers were using the trails from that area.  Can you spot our truck in the picture?  Doug drove just a short way to the very end of the road.  What a nice pretty drive.  The mountain sure looks different at the top than what you see from the distance down below.  I think the south slope is the most photogenic.  

The last stop was at Lake Siskiyou.  We wanted a view across the lake similar to the view in the postcard with the snow.  A great view!  Would have been better with snow but nice all the same.  The beach area was a zoo!  It is very popular for camping, swimming and boating.  People were parked in any bit of space that a car would fit in, and that was outside the full parking lots.  We drove through the campground and are so glad it was full when we called. The sites would have been very hard to get into and the road was too narrow.  It wasn’t a very nice looking campground either.   We didn’t park.  Doug just dropped me off long enough to get some pictures.  I cloned out the people because I like nice clean pictures and wanted to remember the view in a more pleasant way.    

 

Next stop is Crater Lake.