Mt Shasta / Weed / Yreka, CA

[stepper77]

After my sister changed her mind last minute not to go out of state for college, and no longer need my help to move, I decided to use my week to take an impromptu road trip up through Northern California. I traveled over 900 miles over the course of 3.5 days and got to see a good slice of the middle part of our state. I hope you enjoy.

Winters/Willows - Red Bluff - Redding - Weaverville



Mount Shasta, and the city that bears its name, is located in present day Siskiyou County, a result of the original Shasta County being carved into three parts (Trinity County being the third). For someone not accustomed to seeing volcanoes on a regular basis, Shasta is an intimidating, if not beautiful, site. Particularly as it makes its presence known through the trees along highway 5.



Mount Shasta (pop 3,394)



The city of Mount Shasta is the second largest city in Siskiyou County and located nine miles southwest of Mount Shasta's summit. Not exactly a city you'd spend your vacation at, but, it has a nice, sleepy, tourist feel that would definitely draw you in for an afternoon.

























How would you like this view in your backyard?





Can we say Dante's Peak?



Shasta's smaller cousin, Black Butte, on the right































Tacky gifts aside, this is a great way to repurpose a gas station









My companion for the trip taking a deserved break





Always looming...



Black Butte again



Weed, CA (pop 2,967)



Weed is located about 10 miles up highway 5 from Mt Shasta City and is about the same distance northwest of Shasta's summit. Considering how white washed most of Northern California is, Weed is, interestingly, about 20% more ethnically diverse than the greater Siskiyou County. Wikipedia supposes this a result of the historic lumbar and manufacturing industry. I wouldn't have mentioned this normally, but, even before reading that, the demographic shift in Weed was noticeable compared to the other towns I visited on my trip.















Not the play on Weed's name I was expecting





From what I saw, this is one of Weed's popular entertainment venues for the town's youth





























Heading north we come out of the mountains into rolling hills and valleys...yet Mount Shasta dominates.



Black Butte tries to make a make its presence known too.







Yreka, CA (pop 7,765)

>

Not to be confused with Eureka, Yreka is the biggest city and county seat of Siskiyou County. It is located about 22 miles south of the Oregon border and has a colorful history. None more interesting than the push in the early 40s to create a new state out of the counties of northern California and southern Oregon with Yreka as its capital. Those wanting to form Jefferson State went as far as electing a governor in 1941 before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and our entry into World War II ended that secession movement (or so the story goes). Interestingly, I did see some signs promoting Jefferson State while there.

In any event, considering my hotel parking lot didn't fill up until after 7pm and was empty by 9am, I did not get the sense that Yreka is a place many people spend a lot of time in. This is actually a shame because, while not bustling with pedestrian activity, from a historical architecture standpoint, Yreka makes for a very satisfying visit.































































Siskiyou County Courthouse






































































________________________________________________________________
Tour of California 1: Los Angeles, 2: Hollywood, Glendale, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, 3: Riverside, Santa Ana, Long Beach, 4: San Jose, 5: San Diego, 6: Fresno, 7: Stockton, Modesto, 8: Gold Country, 9: Eureka, Arcata, 10: Monterey, Carmel, 11: Santa Cruz, 12: Sacramento Pt One, 13: Sacramento Pt Two, 14: Roseville & Folsom, 15: Concord & Walnut Creek, 16: Tri-Valley, 17: Berkeley, Emeryville, 18: Fremont, 19: Santa Clara, Mountain View, Palo Alto, 20: Redwood City, Foster City, San Mateo, 21: Oakland, 22: Benicia, Vallejo, 23: Napa, St. Helena, 24: Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Sonoma, 25: San Rafael, 26: Larkspur, Mill Valley, 27: Sausalito, Tiburon, 28: Hollister, San Juan Bautista, 29: Long Beach 2008, 30: Venice, 31: Santa Monica, 32: Sacramento Pt 3, 33: Solvang, 34: Alameda, 35: Knights Ferry, 36: California Zephyr, 37: Colfax, 38: Davis, 39: Oakdale, 40: San Francisco Pt 1, San Francisco Pt 2, 41: Chico, Redding, 42: Kings Beach, 43: Merced, 44: Gold Country pt 2, 45: Gold Country pt 3, 46: Sonora, 47: Vacaville, Fairfield, Suisun City, 48: Orange, Fullerton, 49: Anaheim, Irvine, 50: Newport Beach, Laguna Beach,51: San Francisco, Pt 3, 52: Lodi, 53: Martinez, 54: Ft Bragg, Mendocino, 55: San Luis Obispo, 56: Sacramento River Pt 1, 57: Sacramento River Pt 2, 58: Lake Merritt/Oakland, 59: Marysville/Yuba City, 60: Woodland, 61: Beverly Hills"62: Los Angeles, 63: Sacramento, 64: Lakeport, 65: South Lake Tahoe, 66: Salinas, Watsonville, 67: Pacific Grove. 68: Winters/Willows, 69: Red Bluff, 70: Redding, 71: Weaverville

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Makes me miss NorCal that much more. I want to stop in these towns now; usually, I just drive right past on my way to Ashland.

[Expat]

Cute towns. Yreka is a real charmer. Honestly, who would name a town Weed? That is funny. Those mountains are magnificent.

[Leo the Dog]

Weed, CA...

Just imagine all the T-shirts they could sell. Surprised nobody there has capitalized on it.

[Nineties Flava]

Wow. I can't believe how little I know about my own half of the state... amazing set.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Originally Posted by Leo the Dog

Weed, CA...

Just imagine all the T-shirts they could sell. Surprised nobody there has capitalized on it.

They do sell t-shirts, and loads of them. I can't think of a single person at my high school (besides me) who didn't have a Weed shirt.

[Danny]

Nice and quaint towns!

Thank you for the pictures, stepper77.

Mount Shasta is really wonderful! I´ve liked very much to see that mountain capped with snow. It´s great! When did you take these pictures?

Congratulations and greetings from MAD, Spain!

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. It looks like you got pretty close to Oregon. Did you happen to take any pictures on the other side of the border?

Yreka is a funny way to spell "eureka". I wonder if they put the "Y" in front because the "Eu" spelling was already taken. Their courthouse is pretty humble as well, and looks more like a high school than a county courthouse. It's not as humble as Weaverville's, though.

[Kingofthehill]

that whole part of the state needs to be named "weed." oh, and i love the jetta - so very SF of you

[Private Dick]

Definitely like the looks of these places. I could live there for a spell.

[giovanni sasso]

Originally Posted by stepper77

The city of Mount Shasta is the second largest city in Siskiyou County and located nine miles southwest of Mount Shasta's summit. Not exactly a city you'd spend your vacation at, but, it has a nice, sleepy, tourist feel that would definitely draw you in for an afternoon.

on the contrary -- i very, very much want to take a vacation to mount shasta. i've said it a hundred times: shasta is easily the most beautiful single mountain i've ever seen. its prominence from i-5 and across the region, as depicted by your photos here, is powerful and breathtaking. bonus points fo being a cascade volcano!

excellent, excellent tour. i love this thread. and weed. i love weed.

[stepper77]

Thanks for the comments! The city of Weed is definitely the most name grabbing town of the bunch. Whatever the current connotation we attribute to the word, reading about the city's history, the town is simply named after a lumber mill owner Abner Weed. How boring...

Originally Posted by Danny

Nice and quaint towns!

Thank you for the pictures, stepper77.

Mount Shasta is really wonderful! I´ve liked very much to see that mountain capped with snow. It´s great! When did you take these pictures?

Congratulations and greetings from MAD, Spain!

These photos are from this past August. Both Weed and Mt Shasta city are at about 3,400ft and 3,600ft elevation and Mount Shasta itself has a peak of 14,179 feet (4,322 m), so, they get a sizable amount of snow in the winter and are no doubt more beautiful, though I've never been up there during that time of year.

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Nice pictures. It looks like you got pretty close to Oregon. Did you happen to take any pictures on the other side of the border?

Yreka is a funny way to spell "eureka". I wonder if they put the "Y" in front because the "Eu" spelling was already taken. Their courthouse is pretty humble as well, and looks more like a high school than a county courthouse. It's not as humble as Weaverville's, though.

I did get pretty close, but, no I did not go into Oregon on this trip. I did drive as far north as Ashland and Grants Pass, OR a few years ago. Unfortunately, the thread from that trip has long since died here, but you can find them here: Ashland / Grants Pass.

As to the courthouse, while not the worst of my trip, it definitely was a little underwhelming considering the other historic buildings in Yreka. Given the more ornate details, I actually got the sense that this building, which was behind it and to the side, was the original courthouse building.



From what I read, despite the similar sound to Eureka and Yreka's gold rush beginnings, the name supposedly has its origin in the the Shasta language name for Mt Shasta, wáik'a'.

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

that whole part of the state needs to be named "weed." oh, and i love the jetta - so very SF of you

Haha...yes, the jetta is "so very sf". My car though was a trouper. Newer jettas go 10,000 miles between oil changes and by the end of my trip I was 1,000 miles over that, so, I was lucky she held up.

Originally Posted by giovanni sasso

on the contrary -- i very, very much want to take a vacation to mount shasta. i've said it a hundred times: shasta is easily the most beautiful single mountain i've ever seen. its prominence from i-5 and across the region, as depicted by your photos here, is powerful and breathtaking. bonus points fo being a cascade volcano!

excellent, excellent tour. i love this thread. and weed. i love weed.

I agree with you, Mount Shasta, the mountain, and the area in general are definitely worthy of a vacation. My comment was more directed to the city of Mt Shasta. My ideal of vacation in this area would be camping, which I did about 10 years ago at Castle Crags state park about 15 miles south.

[OhioGuy]

Northern California rocks!

[toyota74]

Very nice..love the snowtopped mountain.

[kcexpress69]

Very nice set of photos!! Is Mt. Shasta a dead or just a dormant volcano? Very dominant in its surroundings. Thanks, Stepper!!

[kool maudit]

so where are tunnels to the hollow earth?

[dugdogmaster]

Beautiful little towns.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by stepper77

I did get pretty close, but, no I did not go into Oregon on this trip. I did drive as far north as Ashland and Grants Pass, OR a few years ago. Unfortunately, the thread from that trip has long since died here, but you can find them here: Ashland / Grants Pass.

As to the courthouse, while not the worst of my trip, it definitely was a little underwhelming considering the other historic buildings in Yreka. Given the more ornate details, I actually got the sense that this building, which was behind it and to the side, was the original courthouse building.



From what I read, despite the similar sound to Eureka and Yreka's gold rush beginnings, the name supposedly has its origin in the the Shasta language name for Mt Shasta, wáik'a'.

Thanks. Nice to see that you did make it up into Oregon once, although pictures in August would probably be more welcoming.