Everitt Memorial Highway was closed today (Mt. Shasta, California) because of worry over avalanches: they wanted tourists and locals not to die. January 4th to January 8th is serious

 So, we went up Castle Lake which is a road behind Lake Siskiyou up to around 6000 feet in altitude where the lake is. This time of year (usually) it is frozen over but I no longer trust the ice enough myself to go out on it since I skied onto the lake and fell down and my rear end went underwater and I had to have a friend help me get off my skis to survive the incident. After my skis were off I could stand up in the water and walk to shore a few feet away. So, luckily it wasn't deep enough to drown there only waist deep. But, it was 20 degrees out with about a 20 mph wind so I learned about how you don't freeze to death when that cold from the waist down pretty quickly. Luckily my Truck was within walking distance where I could turn on the heater but I didn't have a change of pants so had to wait to town for a change of pants and a hot shower to thaw out. 

But, today wasn't like that my daughter and my friend since 1969 or earlier's girlfriend wanted to snow shoe out on the lake and I said "No. I don't do that anymore because of what happened to me." So, I snow shoed around the edge of the land barely on the land until I met up with the trail to the fish research cabin lab that is open in the summer and operated by a university studying fish there. But, it started to snow and freezing rain and decided I didn't want to get into a white out or worse so I headed back towards the bathroom and car. My Daughter found me and said, "Hey. I noticed when I drove up that the snow hasn't been removed from the forest service rest room so you can't even get inside the doors." I said: "okay. I guess I'll go out a different way to the car." So, I watched two young guys jump down about 5 feet from the snow to the paved road which is plowed right now and thought about doing this. my daughter said: "Don't do that, Dad." My daughter looks out for me now that I'm 74 a lot so finally I listened to her instead of being headstrong like I was all the rest of my life. But, now I'm 74 and everything is different. And besides my daughter and my friends girlfriend tightened up my snow shoes I bought several years ago from REI in the Bay Area and worked better than they ever had before for me. When I put them on they kept coming loose and falling off but they both seemed to have the knack for tuning Snow Shoes better than me.  (At least at this point). So, I had a really great time snow shoeing and was amazed how well I could even go up and downhill on the snow without falling because of the spikes underneath about where the ball of each foot is. And I didn't get hurt or fall down even once.

Great Day Snow Shoeing at Castle Lake over snow near the frozen lake at 6000 feet. Great Views and the temperature was about 37 degrees or around there so it wasn't too bad for snow shoeing either because the wind wasn't up.