Also, friends of mine have enjoyed it to especially when I'm visiting the Mt. Shasta area. Last year about this time the weather was warmer than now and we went to a place called Cliff Lake which is a fairly difficult dirt road that you can't really make it to unless you have high ground clearance, really know how to drive off road, put it in 4wd low range and drive about 1/2 mile an hour or less in low range over 1 foot to 2 foot high boulders across creeks where the road crosses creeks and other obstacles there. This I think was one of the first times I actually needed to go in low range. Most of the time in snow or mud I just go into 4wd high range for those times.
However, yesterday was another time one of my friends recommended me for safety to go into 4 wheel drive low range.
We had driven up Mt. Shasta on the more remote back side up roads towards Clear Creek and Cold Creek after checking out the mud flows at two points along Mud Creek. We had tried to find an ice cave I went to in the 1980s but someone had changed the dirt roads a lot and we didn't wind up finding the ice cave. So, we went up to Clear Creek and Cold Creek.
One of my friends was talking about getting married at Cold Creek because this is where years ago he had decided to become a professional musician and he has been very successful at that ever since.
I think it is possible I have been here before with one of my friends because I recognized the large boulders at a beautiful spot about tree line with beautiful stream fed meadows.
After we had climbed up to Cold Creek to tree line when we returned to my Tundra my friend who lives out there on that side of the mountain (I did too in the early 1980s) on my own land in an A-Frame I built with my father and wife and some friends then when we home schooled my oldest children until the oldest one was 12.
While we had been hiking up to Cold Creek it had hailed pretty hard at times on us. I was sort of worried we might get socked in by clouds and lose our bearings. But, we could always follow Cold Creek back down to my Truck I suppose even if that had happened. But, luckily that didn't happen.
But, with all the precipitation in the form of hail and rain (sometimes the hail got pretty painful and I had to cover my face with my hood of my jacket) and we all got pretty wet coming down. Also, the conditions on the steepest part were pretty scary because of the wet. We were all sort of scared we were going to slip into a tree when we were going down 35degree to 45 degree places. But, luckily it all turned out okay. I was having some trouble with my right ankle giving out and one of the others was too but we made it down without spraining our ankles or anyone getting seriously injured.
Cold Creek is a very very beautiful place and I was great to see the snow more up close on the mountain too.
On the way down one of my friends said I should go into 4 wheel drive low range because the roads were now wet so I didn't slide off and go off one of the cliffs or have other problems. So, I shifted into 4wd low range and mostly didn't use my brakes going down much except when I had no other choice.
On a 2011 Tundra 4wd there is an S (for shift I guess) which will automatically (if you have an automatic 6 speed transmission like I do allow you to shift through all 6 gears in low range. So, I mostly spent my time switching between 1st and 2nd gear low range to keep all four wheels pulling back on the engine going down for safety which worked actually quite well.
You really have to know what you are doing when 4 wheeling especially in low range because your life is in your hands as well as all the people in your vehicle.
So, you don't want to be 50 miles from the nearest human being, outside of cell service, so you can't call for help unless you really know what you are doing to begin with. But, in this case three of us were expert off roaders
conditions.
The bottom photo is when we were driving up at likely 5000 to 6000 feet on a dirt road. The upper photo we took as we hiked beyond tree line to see the mountain likely 9000 to 10,000 feet high and above with the snow.
As we were driving up we had no idea a storm was going to come in on us. But, that is how mountains often are like Mt. Shasta. They tend to make their own weather. So, when there is snow often the snow there will make more snow sort of like a refrigerator. On this side also there are glaciers whereas on the Mt. Shasta City side they are mostly melted off and the whole mountain on that side was bare of snow a few weeks ago now. But, you can't see the glaciers now because they are covered with recent snow in the pictures.
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