What you can see on the Mount Shasta cam
The whole mountain and both of its summits: the main cone and Shastina, a separate peak grown on its western flank. Shasta makes its own weather, and the smooth, lens-shaped lenticular clouds that park over the summit for hours are one of the things worth watching for.
The west face above the pines
The camera looks east at the mountain over a stand of tall conifers. The lower peak on the left is Shastina, a satellite cone, and the main summit of Mount Shasta, 4,322 m, rises to its right. The edge of the camera's own housing shows at the top of the frame.
Because it faces east, the mountain is in shadow in the morning, against the light, and lit from the front in the afternoon, which is when its gullies and ridges show best. Snow covers the slopes from late autumn into summer.
Four cones in one mountain
What looks like a single peak is really four overlapping volcanoes built one after another over about 600,000 years: Sargents Ridge, Misery Hill, Shastina and the present summit cone, Hotlum. Each grew, was worn down and was buried by the next. The last eruption was around 1250, and the mountain has been quiet since, apart from hot springs near the summit. It is watched from the California Volcano Observatory in Menlo Park.
When to watch Mount Shasta
California is on Pacific time, seven hours behind UTC in summer and eight in winter. Summer and early autumn are dry and clear; winter storms can bury the camera's view for days, though they also leave the mountain at its most photogenic. Late afternoon light from the west is the strongest, and the lenticular clouds tend to form when a front is on its way.
Around Mount Shasta
The town of Mount Shasta sits at its foot on Interstate 5, with Weed and Dunsmuir nearby. Castle Crags, a set of granite spires, stands across the valley to the south-west, and the Everitt Memorial Highway climbs the mountain to 2,400 metres.
Visiting Mount Shasta
The usual route, Avalanche Gulch from Bunny Flat, is a long day on snow with an axe and crampons and no technical climbing, but the altitude and the afternoon rockfall are real. A summit permit is required above 3,000 metres. The lower trails and the highway are open to anyone in summer.
