Over the Siskiyou Pass

No snow overnight and the temperature was rising so we headed south to the Oregon/California border. The big hurdle there is the Siskiyou pass at 4,300 feet. The snow levels were around 2,000 but we decided to go for it. Highway alerts warned that we would need chains to get over this pass and at Medford we saw all the trucks chaining up. So we stopped at Ashland and bought chains and put them on. The road was bare and the temperature was above freezing as we started up—slowly as you can't drive more than 25 mph with chains on. By the time we reached the summit it was clear that there wouldn't be any snow, so we pulled over and took them off. We just squeaked through though because by the time we got to Yreka in California the next snowstorm was coming through. By sheer luck we ran into Lorne and Anne here and found that they had done the same thing. Like good law-abiding Canadians we both bought chains, as did two other BC cars.

Tuesday night we stayed in the Yreka Wal-Mart parking lot in another snow storm. It was a busy, noisy night as the the truckers use this place to pull off the highway and catch an hour or so of sleep. We happened to park very near the entrance so the entire night was filled with trucks backing up and pulling in an out. We woke up to about four inches of snow on the ground and icicles hanging off the front of Mohita's overhang. Here's Mohita in the parking lot with the big boys.

Our goal was to get below the snow line before the next storm swept in, so we headed off over the next mountain pass at Mount Shasta (beautiful with snow covered trees) and made it here to Red Bluff. It looks and feels more the California we had in mind. We're sitting in a little Mexican restaurant, Las Palomas, having lunch and enjoying the sounds of mariachi music and the sound of Spanish, and planning the next leg of our journey—into San Francisco to see our friends Helen and Sam and their dog Addie. We'll keep you posted.