Mount Shasta Camp for Nature Lovers 

 Bertha Chapman Cady 



Instructor of Nature Study, in Chico Normal School 



Of course you have looked at the pictures. Is there need of 

 words to convince you that here is, indeed, a paradise for nature 

 lovers? Mt. Shasta Camp is located on a small stream, formed 

 by one of the great, gushing, contributory springs which feed the 

 upper valley of the Sacramento River. 



The spring, from which the Camp is supplied is fed by Shasta's 

 everlasting snows and bubbles from beneath deep beds of volcanic 

 rock at the mountain's base. Here in its spray the water-ouzel 

 dips and dives feeding on the great wriggling larvae of the stone- 

 flies which he triumphantly brings to the surface before eating. 



The tents gleam white from a thicket of young Douglas and 

 silver firs, pines, both yellow and sugar, incense cedars, and oaks. 

 These trees also offer shade for cots and hammocks through the 

 drowsy hours of midday. 



Beneath the shelter of these same groves, classes gather in 

 informal groups. A circle of trees whose interlacing branches 

 admit the scented breeze and the glint of sunshine, where the 

 birds come to sing and build their nests, where butterflies flit 

 through and flowers bloom at the very door, make a class room 

 well adapted to nature study. 



Above the Camp and off to the East rises Mount Shasta, serene, 

 majestic, holding high her snow-laden crown now veiled in violet 

 mists again quivering and sun-drenched beneath the noon-blue sky. 

 Shastena, the lesser crater, shoulders close against the mountains' 

 western slope while in strong contrast with their heavenly white- 

 ness looms the Black Beetle cinder cone farther to the north. 



Velvet green meadows, flower flecked, and forest shaded stretch 

 away through the valley, broken here and there by mountain 

 streams and limpid lakes, the home of wonderous trout. 



The western wall of the valley is formed by range on range of 

 level mountains less majestic than the eastern mountains, yet 

 richly clothed with forests and myriad blossoms. This Mount. 

 Eddy region holds in our memories the place of rare days and 

 flashes of rich color of friendly flowers, daisies, larkspur, colum- 

 bines and castellejas and pentstemons, with the mysterious pitcher 

 plants, lady slippers, orchids, tiger and Shasta lilies. 



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