It Hasta Be Shasta

So much has been written about the glacier-crowned Mt Shasta -- including accounts of its supposedly hollow interior housing refugees from a lost continent -- that one is tempted to take a skeptical attitude toward the over-exploited peak. The mountain rises 14,161 feet above the surrounding forests.

Mt. Shasta, known as "Skell" to the Klamath and Modoc natives who lived between Mt. Mazama, now known as Crater Lake, and Mt. Shasta, were in the vicinity when the two gods -- Llao and Skell -- would battle each other. Skell finally got the upper hand when he cast a lightning bolt at Llao, decapitating his foe.