4 wheeling on Mt. Shasta

I'm home in the SF Bay area now as I drove back yesterday morning. There was drizzling coming down into Redding but most of the way there was no precipitation coming down. So, clouds were in the sky in varying degrees from about Redding but no storms hitting my Truck coming south.

The day before I decided to drive up to Bunny Flat to see the snow because I knew I was going to leave the next day. This time I didn't get to ski for a variety of reasons. A friend of my wife's and I was in the hospital and so it didn't seem appropriate this time and also the weather didn't co-operate for me either. So, when I was ready to ski the weather wasn't good for me to ski. I don't like skiing in the rain or drizzle or a blizzard by the way for pretty obvious reasons. The first reason is I'm already 71 and unless all conditions are perfect I don't ski. It's one reason why I can still ski at this age. The same is true when I ride my motorcycle. All conditions have to be perfect or I don't ride. It's just common sense at this age.

However, driving down it was basically a sheet of ice I was driving on so I had to be really careful. I tried to stop at Lower Sand Flats road and realized I couldn't really stop in any normal fashion so I downshifted enough to slow down and finally stop skidding the tires on the road. But, this was a good lesson for me because I saw the tracks of a previous 4 wheel drive truck that went down before me and on the next sharp turn he nearly went off the road trying to stay on the ice covered road. Later I passed snow removal equipment which when you are on a sheet of ice is a little nerve racking but when I saw it I downshifted into a lower gear because brakes weren't going to work at all. That day it was snowing from about MacBride Springs Campground across from Morning Star (what it was called in the 1980s and 1970s) It was snowing all the rest of the way up the mountain up Everitt Memorial highway from there.

Later when I drove down onto my friends 2 1/2 acres I couldn't steer my truck easily away from trees and rocks in the now melting snow. At first I thought I was in 2 wheel drive and couldn't believe I was actually in 4 wheel drive the way I couldn't steer and it was pretty dangerous driving in on an unplowed road this way. My friend said he had the same problem later driving out in his all wheel drive car.