High Cornices of snow above Castle Lake mean High Avalanches

Castle Lake right now (opposite Mt. Shasta) at about 6000 feet I went to today with my wife and a friend. But, it might not be safe to snowshoe up to Hart Lake (but most people won't do this simply because that would be a lot of work in this much snow that there is there right now. The Lake is still covered with about at least 6 feet of snow most places and even though I didn't feel safe to cross it this late in the year my friend who is lighter than I am did it today on Mountaineering skis. He wanted to see the waterfall on the back of the lake. I don't think there is danger from avalanches coming all the way down to the lake from the high cornices just maybe a couple hundred feet directly below the cornices at least at this time from my observations.

I haven't seen snow cornices as big as these ones since the 1990s at all. So, this in itself was amazing and to have this much snow still going across the lake that someone could ski across this late in the year was amazing too (at least since around 2000 AD). Especially because some years around 2010 to 2015 the lake never even froze once and those years it would have been possible to boat on the lake 12 months a year. IF the road to Castle lake actually was plowed or even needed plowing then. I remember one year you could even walk to Hart Lake in February because of so little snow which is unusual in the extreme if you were up here from the 1970s to the 1990s when I don't believe that ever happened even once. But, of course we are heavy into Global Warming where almost anything can and will happen now.

The prevailing winds off the tops of the snow cornices is likely coming from the direction of Castle Crags (which you can hike to easily from about where Hart Lake is during the summer time on a pretty well marked trail near there which is what causes the huge snow cornices and avalanches high on the back of Castle lake towards the castle Crags which is what has happened this year too.

A friend showed me where there had also been one avalanche that had come down a hill from the direction of Dunsmuir on Castle Lake which had made it all the way down onto the lake as well. But, that's the only avalanche that actually made it all the way onto the lake itself that I know of. So, if you are hiking around or skiing around Castle Lake watch out if you are high up for those cornices because you can see many places where they have collapsed and turned into smaller avalanches already way above Castle lake.