It's nice to be "Away from it all" Here in Mt. Shasta

It's interesting to me how much going to Mt. Shasta is like  going to Hawaii, especially if you are on Kauai or Maui where you can go remote like to someplace like Haleakala or Hana or the Bamboo Forest there on Maui.

But, I forget sometimes just how "Away from it all" you feel in the vicinity of Mt. Shasta and why I moved here in the 70s for the first time years ago now.

I couldn't deal with the hustle and bustle anymore of Los Angeles County or San Diego County in the 1970s and I needed a break in my life then. So, even though I haven't lived up here full time since 1992 I still remember how it is like a retreat from the insanity of the world with bears and mountain lions and wild animals everywhere.

Three incidents come to mind: "The first one was with a Fairydiddle Flying squirrel who stood on the side of a huge port Orford Cedar and scolded me for being near to him. He was about 10 feet off the ground and I started laughing at him. He was making so much noise he could have woken up the dead. But, his method eventually worked to make me leave. But at least I was still smiling from the silliness of this and of how happy I was to witness something like this first hand in the wilds of the mountains of Northern California.

Another time and Elk that was likely a teenager suddenly saw me on a back woods trail along a ridge of mountains and suddenly ran down the hill fast from that trail.

Another time I was driving my Father and my then 10 year old son in my International Harvester Scout II (a really amazing 4 wheel drive a 1974) and we came upon a bear who stood up on his hind legs to do battle with us potentially. I put the vehicle in reverse so he wouldn't break a window of the vehicle or rip a door off of it and we just watched him for a moment.

Then he realized we weren't going to fight him so he went back down on all fours and walked nonchalantly off into the forest.

Luckily this was a black bear not a Grizzly because Grizzlies would likely attack in this kind of situation possibly. 

But, these kinds of memories are part of what makes being around Mt. Shasta so special in my life.