We drove back to Shasta Dam today and took a tour down in the “guts” of the dam.  We didn’t know it’s the second concrete dam in the U.S. – and twice as big as Hoover Dam!

Here are some pictures of the dam:

We took a day and drive “around” Mount Shasta.  It’s very unique, at least to me, in that it is a mountain that is not part of a range, but stands alone.  We were able to get photos from several different vantage points as we drove around it.

Here are some photos:

While at Shasta Lake we discovered they have a cave that is high up in the cliffs above the lake.  The tour starts across the lake with a boat ride, then a bus that goes up the cliffs about 800 feet to get to the entrance to the cave.

We were the only people on the tour (it’s still early in the season) but there were 75 2nd-graders there for a special kids tour.  We rode across the lake with them and on the bus with about a third of them.  Boy, that many 2nd-graders sure can get noisy!!  But they were all so cute!

We had a different tour guide than the kids as they had a special tour for schools.

The cave tour was very interesting – the “rooms” were at different levels and sometimes we had to walk a ways to get from one room to another.  We learned that the cave was discovered back in 1887 by a native American who was tracking a mountain lion that had been bothering livestock.  He climbed up practically sheer cliff walls following the lion and saw the cave opening.  Since he had no equipment for entering a dark cave, he went about his business and told some neighbors about the cave.  A year later he and a friend went into the cave and started exploring.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that much of the cave was really explored.  Two brothers, seeking to find additional rooms, blasted rock pretty randomly hoping to break into other rooms.  Sometimes they had clues such as air flow or water, sometimes they just decided to blast this wall or that wall.  They destroyed some of the formations doing this.  Since it’s privately owned, they installed steps and the early cave guides actually broke off stalactites by tapping on them with hammers to show the people on the tour.  They also allowed people to wander around on their own with just flashlights!  One ten-year old boy discovered the largest and most impressive room by accident because he was crawling around in the dark.  Yipes!

As we had climbed quite a few stairs while on the tour getting from one room to another, we had to go back down.  The part of the tour climbing back to where the busses waited for us was outside along the cliff wall where they had cut and made steps.  Beautiful views!  treacherous staircase though, narrow steep steps so I was careful going down and then would stop periodically to look around.

Here are some pictures Jeff took of the cave:

We’re staying just a couple of miles from Shasta Lake this week, so we spent some time at the lake.  It’s quite inaccessible except in a few places because the hills surrounding it are very VERY steep.

Shasta Lake was only formed about 60 years ago when they built a huge dam to create the lake and provide drinking water for the area.  A few small towns are now underwater because of the dam!

Here are some pictures of the lake, the surrounding hills and the dam: