2024-25 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA 109
B Y J O H N F L I N N
P
oets, artists, adventurers and New Age mystics are drawn
inexorably to snow-capped Mount Shasta, which juts
14,179 feet into the Northern California sky. It is such an
imposing presence that it creates its own weather—most
notably the strange-looking lenticular clouds that form on its
summit. Some people see in them a jaunty beret, others a UFO
mother ship. Some believe the mountain to be a vortex for
spiritual activity, and at least two religions have been founded
on its flanks.
Mount Shasta is the focal point of one of California's least-
populated regions, a land of high-desert tumbleweeds,
majestic rivers and craggy volcanoes. This is where the West
Coast's two major mountain ranges—the Sierra Nevada and the
Cascades—run headlong into each other.
Just to the south of Shasta, Mount Lassen, the southern-
most of the Cascade peaks, erupted in 1914-1917, spewing ash
as far as 200 miles away. Today, pots of boiling mud and steam
vents smelling of rotten eggs attest that this volcano is far
from dormant.
To the west rise the Trinity Alps and Marble Mountains,
relatively unvisited gems that are popular venues for fly fishing
SHASTA
CASCADE
TOP CITIES
Redding, Mount Shasta City, Weaverville, Weed,
Chico, Oroville
DOMESTIC GATEWAY
Redding Regional Airport (RDD) has flights from
Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is 9 miles (14 km)
from the Redding city center
TOURISM WEBSITES
discoversiskiyou.com
upstateca.com
discoverklamath.com
visitredding.com
chooseredding.com
POPULATION
274,000
SHASTA CASCADE
Explore the great outdoors with a mystical mountain, mud pots and more
