Dunsmuir, California

Dunsmuir is currently a hub for tourism in Northern California where visitors enjoy fishing, skiing, rock climbing, or sight-seeing. During the days of the steam engine it was notable for being the site of an important Central Pacific (and later Southern Pacific) railroad yard, where extra steam locomotives were added to assist trains on the grade to the north.  It is located on the Upper Sacramento River, a blue ribbon trout stream that attracts fishermen from all over the world. 

It was a short drive to Railroad Park Resort/RV Park in Dunsmuir, CA.  This is the prettiest, best-smelling campground we have been in this trip.  It also has a "Landury" Room.  Our rig is surrounded by many large evergreens and before arriving at the campground you pass the Railroad Park Resort that has many train cars scattered around.  They rent them out and are like individual motel/hotel rooms . 

We took off to view Mt. Shasta as close as possible.  It reaches the height of 14,179’ and is by far the youngest geologic feature in the area.  It is volcanic, forming in episodes beginning 530,000 years ago and last erupting in 1786.  It is now considered dormant.  It is figured that it will become active again in the future.  It was very devoid of snow. 

We then checked out the City of Mt. Shasta.  We lucked out as it was their afternoon to have a Farmer’s Market.  We made purchases there, walked around downtown and then headed back to the campground.

Sleeping until almost nine o’clock we showered and dressed and went to the #1 restaurant in Dunsmuir only to find that they are closed on Tuesdays.  Arriving at Yak’s, the #2 restaurant we ordered our breakfasts.  We split French toast with Bailey’s Irish Cream and Bourbon as the sauce.  They are known for that!!!!  Neither one of us really would ever order that again.  We split a tomato, bacon, spinach omelet, which was good.  Going through the small town we decided we could never live in such a small town with not much to do.

Our next destination was the Castle Crags.  We drove up a single-lane curvy road with an edge that dropped straight down the mountain we climbed with the truck.  From the parking area we hiked about a quarter mile with a 4% incline, to the view point.  The crags are made of granite that cooled slowly deep with the earth.  Over time this granite was uplifted and the rock above it worn away.  Once the granite was exposed to the elements, water and ice have taken over as the main sculpting forces, breaking fractures in the rock, creating the castle-like features.