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Mount Shasta ( ; Shasta people: Waka-nunee-Tuki-wuki; Karuk language: Úytaahkoo) is a potentially active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. At an elevation of , it is the second-highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth-highest in the state. Mount Shasta has an estimated volume of , which makes it the most voluminous stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. The mountain and surrounding area are part of the Shasta–Trinity National Forest.
The mountain consists of four overlapping dormant volcanic cones that have built a complex shape, including the main summit and the prominent and visibly conical satellite cone of Shastina. If Shastina were a separate mountain, it would rank as the fourth-highest peak of the Cascade Range (after Mount Rainier, Rainier's Liberty Cap, and Mount Shasta itself).
Mount Shasta's surface is relatively free of deep glacial erosion except, paradoxically, for its south side where Sargents Ridge runs parallel to the U-shaped valley Avalanche Gulch. This is the largest glacial valley on the volcano, although it does not now have a glacier in it. There are seven named on Mount Shasta, with the four largest (Whitney Glacier, Bolam Glacier, Hotlum Glacier, and Wintun Glacier) radiating down from high on the main summit cone to below primarily on the north and east sides. The Whitney Glacier is the longest, and the Hotlum is the most voluminous glacier in the state of California. Three of the smaller named glaciers occupy cirques near and above on the south and southeast sides, including the Watkins Glacier, Konwakiton, and Mud Creek glaciers.
At the time of Euro-American contact in the 1810s, the Native tribes who lived within view of Mount Shasta included the Shasta people, Okwanuchu, Modoc people, Achomawi, Atsugewi, Karuk, Klamath people, Wintu, and Yana people tribes.
A historic eruption of Mount Shasta in 1786 may have been observed by Lapérouse, but this is disputed. Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program says that the 1786 eruption is discredited, and that the last known eruption of Mount Shasta was around 1250 AD, proved by uncorrected radiocarbon dating.
Although earlier Spanish explorers are likely to have sighted the mountain, the first written record and description was made on May 20, 1817, by Spaniard Narciso Durán, a member of the Luis Antonio Argüello expedition into the upper areas of the Sacramento River Valley, who wrote "At about ten leagues to the northwest of this place we saw the very high hill called by soldiers that went near its slope Jesus Maria, It is entirely covered with snow." Peter Skene Ogden (a leader of a Hudson's Bay Company trapping brigade) in 1826 recorded sighting the mountain, and in 1827, the name "Sasty" or "Sastise" was given to nearby Mount McLoughlin by Ogden. An 1839 map by David Burr lists the mountain as Rogers Peak. This name was apparently dropped, and the name Shasta was transferred to present-day Mount Shasta in 1841, partly as a result of work by the United States Exploring Expedition.
Beginning in the 1820s, Mount Shasta was a prominent landmark along what became known as the Siskiyou Trail, which runs at Mount Shasta's base. The Siskiyou Trail was on the track of an ancient trade and travel route of Native American footpaths between California's Central Valley and the Pacific Northwest.
The California Gold Rush brought the first Euro-American settlements into the area in the early 1850s, including at Yreka, California and Upper Soda Springs. The first recorded ascent of Mount Shasta occurred in 1854 (by Elias Pearce), after several earlier failed attempts. In 1856, the first women (Harriette Eddy, Mary Campbell McCloud, and their party) reached the summit. The Shasta Courier reprints from its files of 1856.
exploring the Whitney Glacier in 1870]]By the 1860s and 1870s, Mount Shasta was the subject of scientific and literary interest. In 1854 John Rollin Ridge titled a poem "Mount Shasta." A book by California pioneer and entrepreneur James Hutchings, titled Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, contained an account of an early summit trip in 1855. The summit was achieved (or nearly so) by John Muir, Josiah Whitney, Clarence King, and John Wesley Powell. In 1877, Muir wrote a dramatic popular article about his surviving an overnight blizzard on Mount Shasta by lying in the hot sulfur springs near the summit. This experience was inspiration to Kim Stanley Robinson's short story "Muir on Shasta".
The 1887 completion of the Central Pacific Railroad, built along the line of the Siskiyou Trail between California and Oregon, brought a substantial increase in tourism, lumbering, and population into the area around Mount Shasta. Early resorts and hotels, such as Shasta Springs and Upper Soda Springs, grew up along the Siskiyou Trail around Mount Shasta, catering to these early adventuresome tourists and mountaineers.
In the early 20th century, the Pacific Highway followed the track of the Siskiyou Trail to the base of Mount Shasta, leading to still more access to the mountain. Today's version of the Siskiyou Trail, Interstate 5, brings thousands of people each year to Mount Shasta.
From February 13–19, 1959, the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl obtained the record for the most snowfall during one storm in the U.S., with a total of .
Mount Shasta was declared a National Natural Landmark in December 1976.
The "Shasta Gulch" is referenced in the lyrics to the 1994 song "Unfair" by cult indie rock band Pavement.
Italian settlers arrived in the early 1900s to work in the mills as stonemasons and established a strong Catholic presence in the area. Mount Shasta City and Dunsmuir, California, small towns near Shasta's western base, are focal points for many of these, which range from a Buddhism monastery (Shasta Abbey, founded by Houn Jiyu-Kennett in 1971) to modern-day Native American rituals. A group of Native Americans from the McCloud River area practice rituals on the mountain.
Mount Shasta has also been a focus for non-Native American legends, centered on a hidden city of advanced beings from the lost continent of Lemuria. The legend grew from an offhand mention of Lemuria in the 1880s, to a description of a hidden Lemurian village in 1925. In 1931, Harvey Spencer Lewis, using the pseudonym Wishar Spenle Cerve, (1999). 9780810388789, Cengage Gale. ISBN 9780810388789 wrote Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific, published by AMORC, about the hidden Lemurians of Mount Shasta that cemented the legend in many readers' minds. A 1941 novella by Robert A. Heinlein, Lost Legacy, drew on these legends and portrayed the mountain as the home of a community of peaceful and powerful "adepts" who had the goal of advancing the human race.
According to Guy Ballard, while hiking on Mount Shasta, he encountered a man who, introducing himself as the Count of St. Germain, is said to have started Ballard on the path to discovering the teachings that would become the "I AM" Activity religious movement.
In August 1987, believers in the spiritual significance of the Harmonic Convergence described Mount Shasta as one of a small number of global "power centers". Mount Shasta remains a focus of "New Age" attention.
In 2009, a group of hikers were making their way up Mt. Shasta when they reported seeing a flying humanoid creature with batlike features. They described what they saw as a man “stocky as Hulk Hogan, with leathery wings fifty feet from one end to the other and the face of a bat.” Despite the conflicting details, both accounts have been added to the legend of Batsquatch as additional proof.
in 2024, a 20-foot bronze statue of the Virgin Mary was built in the Ski Park. The statue was built in memory of Ray Merlo, husband and business partner of the Ski Park's owner, Robin Merlo. Ray Merlo passed away from cancer in 2020.
What remains of the oldest of Mount Shasta's four cones is exposed at Sargents Ridge on the south side of the mountain. Lavas from the Sargents Ridge vent cover the Everitt Hill shield at Mount Shasta's southern foot. The last lavas to erupt from the vent were hornblende-pyroxene andesites with a hornblende dacite dome at its summit. Glacial erosion has since modified its shape.
The next cone to form is exposed south of Mount Shasta's current summit and is called Misery Hill. It was formed 15,000 to 20,000 years ago from pyroxene andesite flows and has since been intruded by a hornblende dacite dome.
There are many buried glacial scars on the mountain that were created in recent glacial periods ("ice ages") of the present Wisconsinian glaciation. Most have since been filled in with andesite lava, , and Scree from lava domes. Shastina, by comparison, has a fully intact summit crater indicating Shastina developed after the last ice age. Shastina has been built by mostly pyroxene andesite lava flows. Some 9,500 years ago, these flows reached about south and north of the area now occupied by nearby Black Butte. The last eruptions formed Shastina's present summit about a hundred years later. But before that, Shastina, along with the then forming Black Butte dacite plug dome complex to the west, created numerous pyroclastic flows that covered , including large parts of what is now Mount Shasta, California and Weed, California. Diller Canyon ( deep and wide) is an avalanche chute that was probably carved into Shastina's western face by these flows.
The last to form, and the highest cone, the Hotlum Cone, formed about 8,000 years ago. It is named after the Hotlum glacier on its northern face; its longest lava flow, the Military Pass flow, extends down its northeast face. Since the creation of the Hotlum Cone, a dacite dome intruded the cone and now forms the summit. The rock at the summit crater has been extensively hydrothermally altered by sulfurous and there (only a few examples still remain).
In the last 8,000 years, the Hotlum Cone has erupted at least eight or nine times. About 200 years ago, the last significant Mount Shasta eruption came from this cone and created a pyroclastic flow, a hot lahar (mudflow), and three cold lahars, which streamed down Mount Shasta's east flank via Ash Creek. A separate hot lahar went down Mud Creek. This eruption was thought to have been observed by the explorer La Pérouse, from his ship off the California coast, in 1786, but this has been disputed.
California’s Exposure to Volcanic Hazards Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5159 Prepared in cooperation with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the California Geological Surve
Mount Shasta can release volcanic ash, pyroclastic flows or dacite and andesite lava. Its deposits can be detected under nearby small towns. Mount Shasta has an explosive, eruptive history. There are on the mountain, which show Mount Shasta is still alive.
The worst-case scenario for an eruption is a large pyroclastic flow, similar to that which occurred in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Since there is ice, such as Whitney Glacier and Mud Creek Glacier, would also result.
The United States Geological Survey monitors Mount Shasta and rates it as a very high-threat volcano.
No quota system currently exists for climbing Mount Shasta, and reservations are not required. However, climbers must obtain a summit pass and a wilderness permit to climb the mountain.
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