Now that’s different. It’s usually all doom and gloom. Glacier National Park will be glacier-free in 20 years. Andes glaciers are retreating fast. The Haute Route may not be skiable soon. And on and on. Not the case on Shasta.

Check this out via USA Today:

Reaching more than 14,000 feet above sea
level, Mt. Shasta dominates the landscape of high plains and conifer
forests in far Northern California.

While it’s not California’s tallest mountain,
the tongues of ice creeping down Shasta’s volcanic flanks give the
solitary mountain another distinction. Its seven glaciers, referred to
by American Indians as the footsteps made by the creator when he
descended to Earth, are the only historical glaciers in the continental
U.S. known to be growing.

With global warming causing the retreat of
glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the
Cascades, Mt. Shasta is actually benefiting from changing weather
patterns over the Pacific Ocean.