Northern California early Spring photography - Part 3

Read my previous couple of posts about northern California photography to get the details before this event.

After Gray Lodge, my brother and I decided we wanted to try and get some sunrise shots of Mount Shasta. We figured that with clear evening skys and lots of snow in the higher elevations this year it might be a good chance to get some "golden light" on the mountain at first light. It is about a 2.5 hour drive from Gray Lodge to Mount Shasta via highway 99 (Chico, Los Molinos, and Red Bluff) and I-5 (Redding, Lake Shasta, Dunsmir) to Weed. We didn't get away from Gray Lodge until dark and a bright moon kept teasing us with nice clear views of Mt. Shasta once we got close. We found a cheap motel (Motel 6) in Weed and set our alarms for 5:00a even though official sunrise wasn't until 7:15a PDT. That's one nice benefit of the earlier switch to daylight savings time and a good reason to like winter photography - the sun rises a bit later than the middle of summer so you're not operating on 3-4 hours of sleep every day.

We woke up to very low clouds on Monday morning and cursed the weather. We decided to drive north on I-5 in hopes to get a view of a clearing mountain as we gained some elevation. None of that was going to happen as we drove I-5 and took the West Louie Road exit that leads to Gazelle. A quick gaunt thru Gazelle (can't be more than 40 or 50 residents) and we started heading back south on Old Hwy 99. No particular outstanding photo opportunities presented themselves though we stopped at one point and photographed a nice small volcanic cinder cone with a crown of clouds in the VERY gray light.

Mount Shasta seems to be a good photo subject with decent light and should be good for either sunrise or sunset. However, we did find some better spots on highway 89 (Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway) that should prove more worthwhile than going all the way to Weed. I'll cover the highway 89 opportunities in another posting.