Throughout the mountains mistletoe, that mystic plant of the Druids, hangs from the limbs and trunks of tall trees.
It was with an arrow made from mistletoe that Hoder slew the fair Baldur.
All day long snow-covered Mt. Shasta has been in sight and toward evening we pass near it on the southern side of the range and stop at the Shasta Soda Springs. The principal spring is natural soda water. This is the fashionable summer resort of San Francisco people, who come here to get warm, the climate of that city being so disagreeable during July and August that people are glad to leave town for the more genial air of the mountains.
THE HIGHEST TRESTLE IN THE WORLD, NEAR MUIR’S PEAK, SHASTA RANGE.
It certainly is odd to have people living in the heart of a great city ask you during these two months if it is hot out in the country. “Out in the country” means forty or fifty miles out, where there is plenty of heat and sunshine. At Shasta Springs, however, the weather is cooler. The climate is delightful, the water refreshing and the strawberries beyond compare. Boteler, known as a lover of strawberries, once said of his favorite fruit: “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.”
Just beyond the springs stand the wonderful Castle Crags. Hidden in the very depths of these lofty Crags lies a beautiful lake. This strange old castle of solid granite, its towers and minarets casting long shadows in the moonlight for centuries, is not without its historic interest, though feudal baron nor chatelaine dainty ever ruled over it. Joaquin Miller, in the “Battle of Castle Crag,” tells the tale of its border history.
Not far away at the base of Battle Rock a bloody battle was once fought between a few whites and the Shasta Indians on one side and the Modoc Indians on the other.
MOUNT SHASTA.
By permission of F. Laroche, Photographer, Seattle, Washington.