Mount Shasta Via Hotlum-Wintun Ridge

June 16th & 17th, 2012
Mount Shasta (14,179')

This weekend was originally planned as a quick three day Sierra climb to grab Brewer, North Guard, and South Guard over Sphinx Col until during the Steve Eckert proposed that we do a quick Shasta trip as a warm-up for the planned July climb of Mt Olympus.

Shasta is one of the 15 14,000+ ft peaks in California and therefore a very popular climb for the altitude hungry crowd.  I’d been invited to go before but always via the popular southern route called Avalanche Gulch and I was somewhat reluctant to burn two whole days getting to / from Shasta that could be better spent mucking about in the Sierra as far from any crowds as possible.

Steve however proposed coming in from the east and climbing the Hotlum-Wintun Ridge which I'd never heard of which always has appeal.  As an added bonus we’d only take 3 days if I could fly in to San Francisco and drive the rest of the way with him.

And it is one hell of a mountain from a distance.

Exploring the Abandoned Boron Federal Prison Camp

June 3rd, 2012
[Pics]

Along the 395 6 miles north of Kramer Junction is an entrance to…something. I’d driven by it a number of times and always assumed it was a shuttered observatory due to the large white done on the hill behind it.


Turns out it’s the abandoned Boron Federal Prison Camp.

Image from http://www.radomes.org/museum/recent/BoronAFSCA.html