when I was 15 or 16 I was with friends who were visiting Shasta Springs from all over the country and world. Two of my friends one with a VW Bug then which would be either 1963 or 1964 decided up at Castle lake after we all swam there which is about 10 miles up a paved road from Lake Siskiyou that my friend with a VW Bug from Florida and my friend with an MG Midget which is a convertable English Sports car were going to race down the road. Now just remember in 63 or 64 people didn't wear seat belts and then because there were so many of us including girls I volunteered for safety of the girls that I would sit crosswise behind the seats of the MG Midget. So, then we race down the mountain which for me was okay until we hit the ONE WAY Bridge across the Sacramento River which then existed because they hadn't built the Dam for Lake Siskiyou yet. I was screaming for them to stop because they were neck and neck racing across that one lane bridge. But, luckily none of us died simply because the MG Midget and the VW Bug aren't very wide. So, even though I was screaming for us to stop because I thought we all were going to die at high speed we still had an inch or two on each side of both cars so we didn't even scrape the railings of the ONE LANE Bridge. It's amazing what you can survive as a young person when friends (OR YOU) do crazy things.
But, now, the river is gone there and the road crosses the bridge over the Dam like many dams are built with roads across the top of the bridge like that one over Lake Siskiyou now. And the one lane bridge across the river and even the river itself (at least at that point is gone too) replaced by the Dam and the lake behind it.
Today a friend of mine who started climbing mountains like to the top of Mt. Shasta which we did in 1970 in August about now and before that we climbed up the wire to the top of Half Dome which is about 10 miles hiking each way which can be done in one day if you are ambitious. You head towards Vernal Falls then to California Nevada Falls. But, remember you have to get a reservation not only to get into the park but also now a reservation to be allowed to climb up the wire on the rounded part of Half dome which is pretty steep.
However, watch out coming down for vertigo in your group. My second wife got vertigo coming down the steep steep wire on both sides of you across incredibly steep Granite surfaces and I thought I might lose her if she fainted. So, I walked in front of her thinking I might catch her if she fainted from the vertigo of thousands of feet of height there coming down from the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
Today my friend and I took two cars because I have a problem with my left hip climbing now so I took a 2nd car in case I couldn't make it down a steep embankment with boulders and trees to the main river that feeds into Lake Siskiyou below. However, it was sort of like a rock climbing experiment for me only without the ropes that my friend and I often climbed sunnyside bench in Yosemite National Park years ago.
However, today was much more difficult for me to do this but somehow I did. I even took our Blue Merle corgi on this jaunt into the river below. People had built pools to soak and I suppose almost swim in but because it was around 87 degrees the freezing water felt very good because the rocks were so hot that weren't in the water they almost burned your hands when you grabbed them. A couple of times the Granite was just so hot I splashed water on the boulders just to cool them down enough to climb on them at all with my hands.
After soaking for awhile in the very refreshing Alpine river there above Lake Siskiyou it was time for me to climb up again. My friend lifted my corgi up from boulder to boulder because this would have been beyond her ability with those very short legs a Corgi has.
However, a Corgi is usually around 30 pounds as an adult with a bid dog personality which many people like because often they are much more mellow than smaller dogs. Except our corgi is an alpha female which means she won't bite other dogs but she might bark at them. But, since there were no other dogs in the wilderness where we were and likely only 4 to 10 people even within 5 miles of us up and down the river with people swimming there like we were in the pure alpine water which is snow runoff from above us this time of year.
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