Cascade Range

Lassen in Spring

The upper elevations of Lassen Volcanic National Park routinely receive upwards of 200 inches of snowfall per year, The record was set in 1983 when 331 inches fell. Such snowpacks can close the road to the interior of the park may be closed into late June. But that is good news for plants animals, and people. The time-release action of melting snow helps replenish aquifers, rivers and reservoirs in the bone-dry summer months. In this photo from 04/30/2006, we see a thick blanket of snow still cloaking the upper slopes of Mt. Lassen .

Blurred Lines

The haze in the sky is not the only thing blurry about this scene. Pictured here we look north across Lake Almanor to Lassen Peak. The lake sits at or near the boundary of the Cascade Ranges and the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the south. Except in a few cases, such boundaries between physiographic regions are usually vague and undefined. Unlike political boundaries, they rarely conform to geometric points, lines and polygons drawn onto a map.

State of Jefferson

Recent political stunts to divide up California into separate states are nothing new. The Golden State has endured such schemes since shortly after its formation. The "State of Jefferson" is one of the most legendary. In 1941 residents of northern California and southern Oregon proposed to make a new state. Their grievances centered around a belief that their respective state capitals (Sacramento and Salem) paid more attention to urban constituents in the large cities. The movement quickly lost steam due to the bombing at Pearl Harbor and America's entry into WWII. Time and again studies have shown that rural counties and states that rely on primary, extractive resource industries received more financial support from state and federal governments than they contribute.

Summer Fields of Gold

Though the soils are fertile, outside of the Shasta Valley, farming and ranching ventures in the Cascade Range are small-scale affairs.

Wild Turkeys

The turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) that are seen roaming the state today are non-native. Turkeys were introduced as a trophy hunting bird by the California Fish and Game Commission in the early 20th Century. A closely related species once did inhabit California but it died out around 10 to 12 thousand years ago, shortly after the Pleistocene ended. The modern turkeys seen here were photographed around Shasta Lake. They have become well established in an arc stretching from the coast ranges north of the Bay area , through the southern Klamath and Cascade regions and into the northern Sierra foothills.