Remote

The most remote I was on this trip to Canada was actually around Mt. Shasta where I was about 40 to 50 miles from the nearest human being except those with me in my 4 wheel drive. A couple of times we weren't even sure exactly where we were but two of us traveling were experts on the paved and dirt roads of this area.

First, we tried to go from Mt. Shasta over to the McCloud area. I decided to see what had happened to 2 1/2 acres I had owned with my ex-wife about 10 miles to the East and North of McCloud. I found my old acreage and felt sort of sad that someone had build a big fence around it with a sign "Beware of Dog" there. Also, the spring on my old land was obviously dry this year in the drought. I was surprised by how built up and up town many homes were there now in that area. People had sunk wells and gone solar and were off the grid including one of my old friends who lived out there who we visited who is now about 71. (He's about 5 years older than me.) I used to go up to Cold Creek and Clear Creek high on that side of the mountain when more of the dirt roads were still open in the 1980s up into those very remote areas of Mt. Shasta.

I was also happy to see some of the glaciers on the back side of Mt. Shasta hadn't completely melted out like they have on the Mt. Shasta city side where the mountain is completely bare of snow as seen from the city now.

I had only one bad day of smoke from the fire at Ft. Jones before the wind changed and I could breathe better the next day. I was kind of worried because I wasn't adjusted to 3500 feet yet and the smoke was too much on top of that to deal with for me. But, I made it through.

So, as we went up on the mountain on Widow Springs Drive (widow springs drive and road intersect and I can't usually figure out which is which especially after not living there at all since about 1989 when it was sold around that time.

So, as we headed up drive or road up the mountain towards Cold Creek or Clear Creek. Because there are only so many hours in a day with daylight, some of us wanted to go to Medicine lake and some of us wanted to go to Cold Creek and Clear Creek (one or the other). But, we realized that from where we were then (about 9000 feet in elevation on a dirt road) we couldn't do both the same day. I was happy to be high on the mountain on a red dirt road (red volcanic dirt road) so we traversed along this road to the East and north over Ash Creek (drove through the water wherever there weren't installed culverts to divert the water) Mud Creek Pilgrim Creek and others. Finally, I was driving and got out barefoot(It's legal to drive Barefoot in California because some sandals can cause accidents when they get caught in the accelerator pedal).

This is what you look for when in the wilderness very remote for navigation when you aren't sure exactly where you are in California. Then soon likely you will see a section marker on a further tree within a few blocks or a mile that is rectangular that shows your location in latitude and longitude and minutes. However, this will only be in forest wilderness with trees that one can nail or screw these diamonds or section plates to every so often. So, then you can apply these coordinates to a paper section map put out by the Forest Service which we had with us for this area. Other people might just use a hand held GPS device. But, what happens when your batteries go dead on this device? You are lost.

We then at one point weren't completely sure where we were on the mountain and by then were at least 20 to 30 miles from the nearest human being. So, we started looked for section markers (little orange diamonds on the trees) to tell us where we were according to lattitude and longitude with our paper maps (because there is no cell service where we were). I realized if I had just loaded my Google maps while I still had cell service at least I could have seen the little blue dot(where I was) on those maps. But, that only works if you load the maps while you still have cell reception like I did with my wife at Mt. Saint Helens earlier.

Finally, one of my friends found a good section marker and located it on his paper map so we were mostly okay after this in finding the right roads that would take us on dirt and some paved roads to Medicine Lake.

Near medicine lake we found Little Glass Mountain which is one of the mountains there composed of Obsidian where native Americans of the local 6 tribes around Mt. Shasta made arrowheads from the obsidian found there near Medicine lake. Medicine lake was a neutral point where local tribes wouldn't kill each other if a hunter made it there without being killed by one of the local tribes then.

So, when we reached Medicine lake just like other water sources it was very low so we walked out to the lake thinking it would be deep enough to swim in. But, this really wasn't the case.

So, for me, the high point of the trip had to be stopping at Ash Creek, Mud Creek, Pilgrim Creek, and other pristine creeks along the way and wandering around in the wilderness. We also found a 4 wheel drive road part way up to Little Glass Mountain. Two of our friends, a friend and his girlfriend climbed to the top of Little Glass Mountain and brought back some great photos. I realized that the glass obsidian was very dangerous to walk up with just the Crocs I was wearing and coming down it is like walking on Knife blades so if you fall it is also very dangerous. Going up the mountain with crocs would likely be okay but coming down you would be sure to get injured. So, two of us stayed at the base of Little Glass mountain watching the glinting of the sun off all those mirror like black surfaces of Obsidian.

The left photo is of a close up of the obsidian there at Little Glass Mountain. I added a photo of Mt. Shasta likely taken near little Glass mountain looking back at Mt. Shasta with the glaciers on it from that side.

Here are a couple of photos of Medicine Lake in Northern California: