Shasta La Vista

Welcome, well travelled reader, as this week I take you on a trip to what the locals seem to call the "North State". Yes, this weekend that generous Uncle Sundar (that bloke that runs Google) gave us Friday off, so we jumped into America's Smallest Car (tm) and headed for Redding, the nearest meaningful settlement to the mighty Shasta Dam. And mighty she certainly is: Shasta holds back the waters of the biggest reservoir in the state of California, and is the second biggest concrete dam by volume in the country (after the Grand Coulee Dam). As with Grand Coulee, and indeed lots of other infrastructure throughout the West Coast, this is a product of FDR's New Deal.

It's hard to get an impression of the scale here, but this view down the spillways gives you some sense of the kind of vertigo you really should be feeling at this point:

Shasta Dam is primarily here to control flooding, and provide the irrigation which has made California's Central Valley an agricultural powerhouse. It also generates hydro power, although not on the scale of (say) Bonneville on the Columbia River.

The surrounding area is stunningly beautiful; we're at the foot of the Cascade range, which pushes all the way up through Oregon and Washington (remember us visiting Mount Hood and Mount St Helens? Yep, same range) and into Canada. Lake Shasta is in the shadow of Mount Shasta and its accompanying volcanic dome, Shastina, although it hasn't erupted for a while. However, Lassen Peak, visible to the East, erupted pretty spectacularly back in 1915, so there's still a chance!

The area is also home to Lake Shasta Caverns, a network of caves which you can take a guided tour around, but only if you're prepared to take on a steep descent, a quick boat trip across the lake, and a dizzingly-steep bus ride up the side of the mountain to the visitor centre. The caverns have an impressive set of limestone formations, but for our UK readers, Wookey Hole it ain't. As an aside, some of the contrasts between the US and the UK are evident here: I'm pretty sure when I went to Wookey Hole I had to wear a hard hat; no such safety measures required here in the US! Live free or die I guess!

Redding itself is remarkably unremarkable: there's not much there, although the local government are clearly trying to position the place as somehow worth visiting, with a cultural quarter and various exhibits. They even commissioned and built this massive sundial (doubling as the support pillar for a cable-stayed footbridge across the Sacramento River); despite us visiting the weekend the clocks go forward here, we didn't spot anyone labouring over moving this forward an hour.

Being a bit more to the Northern, more rural end of the state, Redding is naturally a bit 'Redder' (i.e. Republican), and it seems like mask-wearing is a thing of the past here. Fortunately that nice Uncle Sundar is still providing us with COVID test kits.

The water resources of the whole area have been marshalled to provide water for the drier parts of the state: we also visited other local reservoirs and dams, including Whiskeytown, with its overflow shaft that has a 260ft vertical drop and lovingly advises you to "STAY ALIVE BY STAYING OUT":

... and also Trinity, which is the second-biggest earthfill dam in the country (after Oroville), and which obviously isn't visited by a lot of tourists (so no decent picture to show for it).

Finally, we also visited the smaller Keswick Dam, creating some debate over pronunciation. In the English pronunciation the 'w' is silent, but is that true in American? Well, it appears the dam was named after a British politician, so I'd say it should be, but in truth, who knows? A local in Redding told me she "really loved my accent" so I'm guessing they don't see a lot of that kind of thing in these parts.

There's lots more to tell you about this trip, reader, in particular, a visit to yet another of the terrible fast food joints that Helen really wants me to visit. But that can wait; until then, Shasta La Vista!