Surviving a Heatwave in Mount Shasta, California

It’s easy to change a weekend plan to avoid rain, cold temperatures, or whatever the reason. It’s slightly more difficult when you plan a month of travel on the road, and an abnormal heat wave blankets Northern California for two weeks during our trip. During the peaking temperatures, rising over 110 degrees, we found ourselves in the town of Mount Shasta with plans to camp that were quickly dashed and required immediate change of plans. Needless to say, working inside of a van that felt like an oven was a recipe for disaster, but we made the most of it over the 4th of July week.

Mount Shasta is a town situated on the west face of a mountain that it gets its name from. A small, old-school mountain town, making it one of the last of its kind. Sadly, towns like these are rapidly disappearing in the west. A ski town without any big condo units, no overpriced fancy restaurants, and definitely no VAIL Corp. What’s left is a surprisingly normal town with skiing, mountain biking, and a lake that was our only savior from the triple digit temperatures. A little body of water called Lake Siskiyou, and without it, the three of us definitely wouldn’t have made it through the weekend let alone enjoyed the town.

We scheduled our trip to Mount Shasta over the 4th of July week, leaving from Redwood National park on the 3rd and then heading to South Lake Tahoe on Sunday the 7th. The only thing we had planned was staying at a KOA near town for the first two nights so that we could enjoy the 4th and celebrate America’s birthday in style. The next two nights, we planned to head up the forest roads up on Mt Shasta’s slope and find a place to camp. But like all good plans, the weather doesn’t care about them. And we quickly found out how difficult it is to spend time sleeping in a van without A/C, let alone working inside of one on Thursday and Friday. Luckily, Lake Siskiyou became our saving grace. Every free moment we had, we spent it here trying to cool off. 

Our entire 4th of July we cruised around the lake on our SUPs, ran around the perimeter trail, or just hung out under the shade of the pines that surrounded the lake. We paddled across the lake, with the dog balancing on the front of the SUP, stopping at beaches along the way to let Gregor run around. Better yet, parts of the lake were shallow enough to stand waist deep in, which is the perfect way to drink a beer on a scorching hot day. The lake is surprisingly clean for how busy it gets, but luckily, it seemed like the lake is a wake-free zone, so we didn’t have to worry about any fast boats cruising around and turning the calm waters into chaos. And that definitely made it easier to paddle around with a dog on the board.

Of course, holidays don’t last forever, and we still had to work the following two days while we were here. And after camping the previous two nights, sweating the entire time, and the temperatures climbing up to 110, it was time for a change of plans. We scrambled, like the rest camping tourists, to find a motel or hotel nearby that wouldn’t cost a mortgage payment with the surge pricing. Sadly, all the rooms in Mt Shasta booked up before we could even do our research, so we found a Motel 6 in the next town north, called Weed. Yup, the town’s name is Weed, California. Named after a logger during the boom era of logging, is now famous for a completely different, yet, obvious reason. But we weren’t out of the woods just yet. As luck would have it, the Motel-6’s air conditioning was broken for the entire facility, and we had to scramble to find a new place to stay.

Book lodging is a difficult enough task. Add in last minute plans and the stress levels start to rise. Now add the sweating reality we were faced with and desperation began to creep in. We had nowhere to sleep, it was too hot to do anything, and if we were hot, then our dog was going to be struggling even worse. Fortunately, we were able to find a, less than ideal, motel with walk-up availability on the other side of town. At this point, beggars could not be choosers and we quickly unpacked our van and stood in front of the breeze from the most glorious window-unit air conditioning. And though this was far from the goal of spending our entire month trip through Oregon and California camping, this was absolutely necessary.  The three of us actually got a real night’s sleep for the first time in days, especially Gregor.

I mentioned before that working in the van felt like we were working inside of an oven. We’d start our day working at 6AM, parked nearby the lake’s edge, when it was the coolest part of the day. Quickly, as the sun hit the higher parts of the sky, the van began to bake, and our internal thermometer began to climb with the outdoor temperatures. With all our fans going, it gave us no reprieve. The canary in the coal mine was when Gregor would start panting every hour, which meant we all had to walk down to the water’s edge, get wet, then head back into the van to get back to work. At one point, it was 106 degrees inside the van, which, as you can imagine, is hard to concentrate in. To add to it, the sun was so strong, it heated the water to an almost boil, through the clear lid of our Yeti cup. Needless to say, it was painfully hot.

They say Mount Shasta is a spiritual place. Now, I’m not sure if they’re just catering to all the crystal lovers that flock here, or if there really is something that draws people to this mountain town. As a disclaimer, I don’t think I’ve been to a mountain town that I haven’t fell in love with, but nevertheless. Mount Shasta is now on a short list of towns that I would come back to in a heartbeat. Especially since we were still able to find the time, in the cooler mornings, to go for trail runs and mountain bike rides. Plus, I’ll need to come back in winter to actually ski this place, especially when it won’t be a heatwave.