Awake: 6:20am Temp 55 Clear Overnight @ Mt Shasta City, CA
Spend over 2 hrs @ the KOA game room trying to receive data from their
broadband cable. Both Jeff & Carr offered their assistance with no
results. Carr used his Mac computer & the broadband tested great. So
obviously some setting is blocking data & I don’t know enough about the
various settings to make the right thing happen.
@ 11:45am we drive over to 629 Alder St (5 min) for an all you can eat
breakfast, cooked by the Masons...it was amazingly good. After the Mason’s
breakfast, we decide that the day is right, we’re in good enough shape
(considering all the campgrounds we have walked & the stair climbing we’ve
done @ Port Angeles & that Mt Ashland hike we did just last Tuesday)…. to
go mountain climbing today.
We drive 12 miles up toward the peak of Mt Shasta to the Bunny Flat area
(elevation 6950 ft). The road on up to Panther Meadow (elevation 7800 ft)
is closed due to late season snow blocking the road for car travel. The
parking area for Bunny Flat is full of cars….hikers everywhere. We find a
close spot to park our small Suzuki & start walking the road to Panther
Meadow. The road is dry (so far) & easy for us to walk up this 5% grade.
30 min later & around a corner, we clearly see why this road is
barricaded: A lot of snow…too much for us wimpy tennis shoe hikers to wade
thru. Back @ the Bunny flat area, we log in 1 hr & 2 miles of easy hiking.
Still full of energy & wanting to go higher & further, we talk with the
volunteer park coordinator about the hike to Horse Camp, a seemingly
favorite destination for a lot of people today. He describes a moderate
hike with some snow still covering the trail to H C @ 7980 ft. This kind
of hiking was more to our liking & could easily be in Alaska. ¾ of the way
up to H C we encounter patches of snow covering the trail….to conserve our
tennis shoes, we side step, go around & sometimes, go thrice the distance
in avoiding mud & snow. Finally, there is no alternative, we have to walk
thru a lot of snow for maybe 40 min. Kathy, in the meantime, has been
doing great….but now, she’s getting unsteady on her feet. It was a clever
& romantic way to get me to hold hands & whisper sweet “watch it’s” & “be
careful now’s” & “keep sliding, I’ve got you” in her ear….but it helped a
lot. We were ready for that Horse Camp to show itself a lot sooner that it
did.
Horse Camp is like a holding spot for serious hikers who are going to hike
the summit of Mt Shasta (elevation 14,162 ft). It had provisions: a wood
burning stove, fireplace, sleeping cots etc. We filled our water bottles
with fresh, ice cold, Mt Shasta spring water, had our picture taken, dried
our shoes a little, then started back down the trail. Of course it was a
lot easier going downhill but we still held hands a lot through the snow
drifts.
Back @ the Bunny Flat area, we log our miles: total 6 Total time: about
3.5hrs.
7:45 dinner: Italian style beef burger; tomato, pepper, olive salad with
Stilton/Gloucester cheese; toasted garlic bread & dried veggie chips.
Evening time: Watch 2 movies on cable: The Wizard of Oz.” I had never
seen it… & “The Passion of Joan of Arc.” A tough movie to watch…..a
silent film from 1928.
High temp today=82 Lights out: 11:28pm
Leave a comment