Sacred Alpine Wonderland on Shasta

The wildflowers of Mt. Shasta are outstanding. One of the meadow's I went to had a native american cross that showed how important and religiously significant the place was (see below). 

 This one looks very alien, I was surprised to see such a vibrant coloration on it

Looks desolate, but these are ancient little plants, each more than 50 years old. 

Then came the mossy, tiny-planted, wet, alpine marsh/bog/meadow (this part was dry, for contrast)

Budding out 

 Indian paintbrush (that's not very PC of me, wasn't sure what else to call it)

Like a flame 

 The moss was 6 inches thick! Some of those are sundew carnivorous plants

The water was so crystal clear 

The trees struggle to make inroads into the area, likely due to acidic soils 

But leads to fun, twisted shapes 

 

Careful where you walk, it could be a very important, very old stone or plant with great meaning. 

Peace.

Mt. Shasta - Magnificent Views (Plus Castle Crags)

A continuation of my trip north:

What's that in the distance?

 A few more miles up and it is much closer

 Oh, there it is!

 Mt. Shasta, the second southern-most cascade volcano (Lassen is the furthest south). Still covered in glaciers in late August

 The freeway goes by Castle Crags State Park, where a granitic extrusion created these immense, complicated cliffs popular with climbers

 This is a spatter cone volcano, likely very dormant. They have ski runs on another one of these closer to the mountain

 I went up a little further to hang out in Weed, Ca. It is just too funny of a name, and if you see below, they have a 'Cougar Cafe', I'm not sure if this is a retiree community...

 The forest ends at the tree line, about half way up the slopes

 And it creates its own weather. The clouds form and are shaped by the mountain, in this case, they arch above/around the summit

 From my camping spot

 At sunset it went crazy pretty

 These colors don't do it justice, it turned pink and then purple

 Almost gone

 Bye bye sun

 The morning brought very cool cloud formations

 One of the volcanic remnants, I liked the red dirt on top

The summit, also with a touch of red

 Wispy clouds go by

 So etherial on the slopes

 More mountain cloud formations, see them dome over the promontories

 A mini volcano in the sky

 This is the crags from about the tree line

 It just went forever with the mist of forest fires all around