ON TOP OF MOUNT SHASTA. 



A. L. A. HIMMELWRIGHT 

 Photos by the Author. 



The opportunity to climb a high moun- 

 tain peak came to me during a recent 

 visit to the Pacific coast. En route to 

 San Francisco I crossed the Siskiyou 

 mountains, and as we emerged from the 

 tunnel I had my first view of Mount 

 Shasta, 80 miles distant, cold, forbidding, 

 defiant, standing out boldly against the 

 Southern sky. The descent of the train 

 from the Siskiyou range, by numerous 

 loops and turns, and until the foothills of 

 Mount Shasta are reached, requires 3 hours. 

 During that time Shasta is always in sight, 

 sometimes on one side of the train and 

 sometimes on the other, as the railroad 



region East of it is underlaid with lava 

 for a distance of 100 miles. Shasta has 

 5 glaciers : 2 on the North, 2 on the East, 

 and one on the South. The Black Buttes, 

 a twin peak 1,000 feet high, in the mid- 

 dle of Strawberry valley and 6 miles dis- 

 tant from Mount Shasta, once formed the 

 summit of the mountain and one side of 

 its crater. The buttes are composed largely 

 of cinders and have 5 distinct crater cups. 

 The forests about the foothills of Mount 

 Shasta have been considerably disfigured 

 by lumbermen, but otherwise the entire 

 region about the mountain is as nature 

 made it. 



CLIFFS, GLACIER AND CREVASSES EASTWARD OF THUMB ROCK. 



winds about the mountains. Similarly, 

 several hours are consumed in travel in the 

 opposite direction before the mountain is 

 lost to sight. 



Mount Shasta is the extreme Northern 

 end of the Sierra Nevada range, and is 

 near the Northern boundary of Califor- 

 nia. It is a huge, isolated peak, towering 

 11,000 feet above the surrounding country 

 and reaching an altitude of 14,380 feet 

 above sea-level. It has one secondary or 

 lower peak on the West side, and dozens 

 of ragged spurs branching from it in all 

 directions. It is oblong in shape, being 

 about 15 miles wide and 30 miles long, or 

 approximately 90 miles around its base. _ 



Shasta is extremely interesting, geologi- 

 cally. It is an extinct volcano, and the 



About 16 miles Southwest is Shasta 

 Springs, now a popular summer resort, the 

 water of the springs having valuable medi- 

 cinal properties. Sisson, McCloud, Mount 

 Shasta Camp, Upper Soda Springs, and 

 Dunsmuir, are villages in the v ; cinity of 

 Mount Shasta that also accommodate sum- 

 mer tourists. Sisson, the largest of these, 

 is the place from which parties usually 

 start to climb the mountain. The best 

 season for the ascent is August and Sep- 

 tember. I arrived at Sisson _ August 24th. 



After canvassing the situation thorough- 

 ly as to guides, I decided on H. L. Em- 

 mons. He accompanied me to my hotel, 

 inspected my clothing, etc., and_ personally 

 superintended the correct placing of the 

 lumbermen's spikes in my shoes. We 



