Northern California photography - final part.

Final part of multi-part post about a short photo trek I took, with my brother Tom, in northern California in mid-March (2008).

After striking out on any early morning shots of Mount Shasta, we headed south on I-5 and took highway 89 planning to hit the north side of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Highway 89 is a Scenic Byway and I was hoping to find some good photo opportunities along its path. One good photo opportunity presented itself in the small town of McCloud. We found some nice views of Mount Shasta from besides the train maintenance yard in McCloud. Again, the mountain did not want to cooperate the peak was shrouded in white clouds. This location should be a nice position for either sunrise or sunset as you are looking pretty much due north at the mountain. The train yard would also provide some different foreground subjects for the mountain. Traveling west on highway 89, we found a small scenic vista that would also provide some nice views of Mount Shasta. This spot should yield some good views of the peak framed by dark green pine trees and looked like the most promising spot we'd found.

We continued on highway 89 deciding to take a stop at Burney Falls State Park. Our grandparents, residents of San Francisco, often spent the summers near Burney in their travel trailer, but neither of us had actually visited the falls. Wow, the falls are impressive with a flow rate of a 100 million gallons of water per day! And, the rate doesn't slow during the dry summers as they are spring fed. We spent some time photographing the falls - beware that the mist is a problem if you close to the falls - but I didn't get anything spectacular as we were they mid-day and the white sky was blowing out on all my images. The falls are a definite on my "re-visit" list!

Highway 89 loops down to the south and touches the northwest corner of Lassen Volcanic National Park at Summertown and Manzanita Lake. At this point, highway 89 continues through the park, but it was closed (as it is every winter) due to snow in the park. Highway 44 continues west toward Shingletown and from there we took Manton Road thru the town on Manton and eventually to highway 36 which leads into Red Bluff. There are some very pretty sections of road with steep changes in elevation on Manton Rd as you descend in the flat, central valley region. Once back to Red Bluff it is high speed highways 99, 70, and 65 back to greater Sacramento area.