The best way to put this is if you are above 4000 feet in elevation almost anything can and will happen 12 months a year and if you aren't prepared for this then you are either injured or a goner.
Things that can happen in August or any time of year:
Hail (go run under a tree or boulder or anything to protect you because mountain hail can be any size.
Snow in August. I have been hiking at 10,000 feet elevation with my family and a friend and it was so warm all we were wearing was t-shirts and shorts and hiking boots. All of a sudden out of nowhere we see clouds around the mountain coming towards us looking ominous. Because it was about 90 degrees out and over 100 degrees down in town the worst we thought could happen to us was some warm rain?
But, that's not what happened. All of a sudden the wind began to blow when the clouds came over head and the temperature dropped 50 or more degrees suddenly and it became a blizzard with us with no jackets or hats and just in shorts and T-Shirts. The older kids then were 6 to 10 years old the 3 of them. We could pick up the younger two because they were light enough to keep them warm next to our bodies and this also helped my wife and I survive this too. We piggybacked them down to my friends huge 4 wheel drive truck. we were likely up in either Clear Creek or Cold Creek on the McCloud side of the mountain then. Then because the snow was slippery and getting up to 1 foot deep my oldest step son who was kind of skinny then started to go into hypothermia and hallucinate because he was cold and started to get hysterical and I had to be very verbally forceful to him to make sure he stayed with us and survived all this (which he did). About a mile or so later we reached my friends huge 4 wheel drive truck and turned on the engine so we could all get warm once again because we had somehow survived this ordeal.
The point is: Any time of year really unusual or weird things can happen and if you aren't prepared for them you might not survive those experiences.
I have been coming down with my family from Horse Camp Sierra Club lodge and been hit with painful hail. Luckily it wasn't bad enough or long enough to seriously injure any of us because we ran under trees and the tree branches protected us from the hail enough so we could survive it.
So, please be prepared for literally anything no matter what time of year you visit Mt. Shasta. Just remember Alpine weather is NOT like weather below around 4000 feet in elevation in the rest of the U.S.
Note: Also, this was in the early 1980s these experiences when the kids were all very young. Now they are in their 50s (from 50 to 54 years old).
Also, you cannot drive as high on the mountain as before simply because the U.S. forest service has blocked all these 4 wheel drive roads up that high on the mountain with logs and boulders so people cannot drive that high on the mountain anymore especially on the Mt. Shasta City and McCloud sides of the mountain.
another interesting thing is that if you have a truck or 4 wheel drive it is also possible to drive from Lava Beds national monument through to Medicine lake and eventually Highway 89 in the summers when all the snow melts off if it does that year but likely only in August through the first snows because they don't plow those roads usually between those two points. Also, Jot Dean Ice Cave is also an amazing thing to visit as well as Glass Mountain which is where Native Americans went to get flint for arrows from the black glass all over the place there from volcanic eruptions.
I have climbed down into inside of Jot Dean ice Cave and climbed down the Ice Waterfall with Rocks in it. The ice waterfall often is there all summer long too depending upon how much snow or water has gotten into those ice caves. end note.
No comments:
Post a Comment