Page 126 - 2022-2023 Travel Guide to California

SHASTA CASCADE
A mystical mountain towers over an outdoor adventure playground
B Y J O H N F L I N N
TOP CITIES
Redding, Mount Shasta City, Weaverville, Weed,
Chico, Oroville
GATEWAY
Redding Municipal 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
shastacascade.com
discoverklamath.com
visitredding.com
chooseredding.com
POPULATION
274,000
SHASTA
CASCADE
Poets, 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 spir-
itual 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, rel-
atively unvisited gems that are popular venues for fly fishing
124 2022-23 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
MADDY M/SHUTTERSTOCKX. OPPOSITE: STEPHEN B. GOODWIN/SHUTTERSTOCK; KENNETH INGHAM/VLSB