STEEP TRAILS 



ney, computed from fewer observations, is 

 about 14,900 feet. But inasmuch as the aver- 

 age elevation of the plain out of which Shasta 

 rises is only about four thousand feet above 

 the sea, while the actual base of the peak of 

 Mount Whitney lies at an elevation of eleven 

 thousand feet, the individual height of the 

 former is about two and a half times as great 

 as that of the latter. 



Approaching Shasta from the south, one 

 obtains glimpses of its snowy cone here and 

 there through the trees from the tops of hills 

 and ridges; but it is not until Strawberry 

 Valley is reached, where there is a grand out- 

 opening of the forests, that Shasta is seen in 

 all its glory, from base to crown clearly re- 

 vealed with its wealth of woods and waters 

 and fountain snow, rejoicing in the bright 

 mountain sky, and radiating beauty on all the 

 subject landscape like a sun. Standing in a 

 fringing thicket of purple spiraea in the imme- 

 diate foreground is a smooth expanse of green 

 meadow with its meandering stream, one of 

 the smaller affluents of the Sacramento; then a 

 zone of dark, close forest, its countless spires 

 of pine and fix rising above one another on 

 the swelling base of the mountain in glorious 

 array; and, over all, the great white cone 

 sweeping far into the thin, keen sky — meadow, 



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