Black Butte, California

Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay


Black Butte is a small volcano at the western base of Mount Shasta. Although appealingly conical, it is a plug volcano and the cone is actually a talus slope.
 
Sunset silhouette view.
A trail winds around the cone to the summit.

Below is the fire lookout on the summit. Fire lookouts are going the way of lighthouse keepers. In this part of northern California, they put towers on peaks just to prove they could do it. During my field season here in 1969, there was one summit we never did find the road to.

Black Butte from the north.
Mount Shasta rising above the clouds, Black Butte on the right, and the mega-slide area in the foreground.

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Created 7 April 2003, Last Update 06 June 2020