Home safe

I packed up last night and got away early this morning from Mt. Shasta trying to make sure Friday traffic (around Sacramento and Stockton) wasn't going to be a problem. However, even though I missed the bad traffic I hit a place where we went down to 1 lane on 5 between Sacramento and Stockton which meant it added one hour to my drive. So, instead of 6 o r 7 hours it took me 8 hours instead to get home. As I got closer to the coast the weekend traffic jam leaving the coast and heading inland was pretty bad so I was grateful to be going in the opposite direction. Fortunately where I live the traffic headed home from work was also going in the opposite direction so the only bad traffic my direction was the 1 hour lost between Sacramento and Stockton on Interstate 5.

So, after leaving at 9 am and expecting to be home by 3 or 4 I wound up making it home by 5, 8 hours later, tired but glad to be home.

About Sacramento the sky opened up and it was mostly sunny going south after being in rain or snow or clouds almost continuously since I headed north through Sacramento last Monday towards Mt. Shasta. As I write this another storm (I think it is the third one this week is dumping more rain and snow from about Ukiah in California up as far north as Victoria and Vancouver Canada according to my radar weather map right now.

A friend who has 2 1/2 acres at about 4000 feet (Mt. Shasta city is between 3500 and 3700 feet elevation mostly) said he got at least 11 inches of new snow and spent most of the day snow blowing his driveway so he could get his 4 wheel drive in and out to the main road so he wouldn't get stuck. When he called he was bringing more wood in for his wood stove. Most people I know get permits from the forest service in the Mt. Shasta area to cut firewood for wood stoves still there. It is relatively inexpensive if you do this but it is also a lot of work cutting up dead fallen wood of various varieties where allowed by the Forest Service. But, saves a lot of money in heating costs, especially from about October to May or June in a mountainous area with an alpine climate. Springtime above 3500 feet is usually most people's summer time in the northern Hemisphere.

This was a really wonderful trip for me visiting with friends and skiing and visiting both Bunny Flats and Skiing and also visiting Castle Lake and seeing it in a form I had never seen before.

Usually the lake either freezes over or doesn't by now. So, to see 1/2 of the lake covered with ice and 1/2 with blowing water white caps like the ocean was pretty impressive to watch which I had never seen before there ever.

Before about 5 or 10 years ago I skied across Castle lake almost every winter. But, now you cannot trust the lake to freeze deep enough anymore. So, even if I ski across I stay close to shore (when this is practical) so if I break throughh the ice I only go in up to my waist or less which I'm more likely to survive.

Two winters ago now I believe I fell skiing on to the lake and my skis were on top of the lake but my rear end was under the ice in the water. This was awful because I had to get a friend to come help me because I was stuck like that.

You all have seen people who fall through the ice. For me, it wasn't like that at all. However, the only way I could get out of the lake realistically was to take off my skis and to walk out of the lake which I did. However, the air was around 20 to 25 degrees with wind blowing pretty hard. I was sort of okay but slowly going into shock because I was wet from about a little above my waist to the tips of my toes. Luckily, my friends walked me to the car and I didn't faint from hypothermia but I didn't have any other pants to change into there so I had to wear my ice cold pants down in my truck to my hotel room and try to warm up in a tub for an hour or two. Luckily nothing froze permanently and luckily we were only a block or two from my truck before I could turn a heater on my very wet pants and shoes before I got to my hotel room and got into a hot bath to thaw out.

Mostly it is "How quickly can you get warm after falling through the ice?" and likely how young and how strong are you and is anyone there helping you?

All these factors will sort out whether you live through these things or not or have parts of you frost bitten or worse.

All my toes and feet and fingers came out okay which is usually what you have to worry about in a case like this in the 20s Fahrenheit.