Crater Lake

From Wikipedia – Crater Lake lies in the caldera of an ancient volcano called Mount Mazama that collapsed 7,700 years ago. The lake is the deepest in the United States and is noted for its vivid blue color and water clarity. Wizard Island and the Phantom Ship are more recent volcanic formations within the caldera. As the lake has no inlets or outlets, the lake is replenished only by precipitation.

• Established: 5/22/1902
• Annual Visitors: 720,659
• Size: 183,224 acres

4/24/2021

Gary does all the planning, navigating and driving. He teaches me camera technology, suggests angles and shot locations and he takes some of the pictures. I do most of the photography because Gary has Rangeley and Rangeley is not conducive to taking still photographs! Gary also does all the tech stuff to organize and post on our blog. I enjoy the car scenery, click the Nikon camera and my cell phone pictures. I write the journal and greatly appreciate our 40 years of planning to be able to experience our fabulous county! Let’s remember the songs and lyrics that are important, like; This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land; God Bless America; and America the Beautiful! We sure are having a blast!

Today was the first day we saw rain since we left Phoenix, 21 days ago! But today is just a driving day. We stayed in Wenatchee, WA last night and headed up 4,100 feet, over the North Cascade Mountains where it was 39 degrees…burr. We stopped for the night at The Dalles, Oregon (pronounced “dolls” – French for rapids).

4/25/21 – Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area

Our plan today was to see water falls along the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. We traveled on the Historic Route Oregon US 30 right beside the Columbia River. Our two, now adult boys, used to play the video game: The Oregon Trail and we are now experiencing The Oregon Trail in person! (Ok, a bit more comfortably I might add!) If you are unfamiliar with the 1971 video game (our kids played it in the 1990’s), it was created as an educational game for students. The player would learn to navigate the 19^th century wagon train trip from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. In the game, the player needed to ford rivers, hunt, etc. all while staying alive!  I texted Tucker, our youngest son (30), and told him we would try not to die of dysentery while traveling through the Oregon wilderness – driving a car and hiking, not in a covered wagon or on horseback! : ) Tucker asked us to avoid drowning and dehydration as well! (All in the game).

We pulled off at Tom McCall Preserve at the Rowena Overlook. The weaving road up to this spot is historic and impressive.

True to The Oregon Trail game natural occurrences if you are not prepared (back in the 1800’s) we chose to take our first hike at Starvation Creek. We saw stunning falls and enjoyed incredibly green, lush forests.

We planned on visiting and experiencing Oregon’s famous Multnomah Falls but found US 30 was closed to get to it. Sadly, there was a landslide blocking the road. So, we tried taking I84. After taking one look at the half mile, hours long line of cars to get into Multnomah Falls parking lot, and, the parking lot was already full, we decided that it was too crowded and drove on. See the fabulous falls and hikes we did enjoy!

We stayed in our favorite hotel chain, Candlewood Suites, for the night, in Portland.

4/26/21

Did you know that Oregon is considered the grass seed capital of the world? The state produces 75 percent of the worlds grass seed! We drove through Linn County and saw the acres upon acres of the grass growing green and blowing in the wind.

We took a fun little side trip to visit three of the 17 historic bridges in Oregon. One, “The Office” was over the Willamette River (Oregon Trail reference again) It was called this because the logging operation’s office in the 1940’s was across the river from where they were logging. See pics.

We climbed to over 5100 feet and experienced 36 degrees, snowing and snow banks on the side of the road! Just 20 miles previously it was sunny and 58 degrees! We are staying near Crater Lake National Park at The Aspen Inn in Fort Klamath, OR which is south of the park. The north entrance is not open due to snow.

4/27/21 Crater Lake National Park

I think you will agree that our photographs at Crater Lake National Park speak for themselves! Honestly, I was not very excited about this park and did not know what to expect. Boy, did we hit the jackpot! The day was sunny and 35 degrees at Rim Village (7,100ft) This picturesque, springtime “winter wonderland”, with very few people early in the morning, made for an outstanding visit.  Living in Phoenix, I would normally say “burr!” to 35 degrees, but the clear skies and warm sun made yesterday’s freshly fallen, glistening snow a magnificent back drop. During spring, the lake is “invisible” due to clouds and bad weather 30% of the time! So, we really lucked out today!

It was a lovely 23-mile drive from where we are staying at Aspen Inn, in Fort Klamath (4,500ft) to Rim Village. We drove through the Fee Booth (6,000 ft) and collected our park map and their ink stamp for our passport book. There was no snow at our hotel nor at the Park entrance (just above 5,000’) but the white stuff appeared quite quickly as we drove up to 7,100 ft. We continued to Discovery Point on West Rim Drive. The south side of the park, off Oregon Route 62, is the only entrance and Discovery Point is the furthest the park allows anyone to drive, in the entire park, until more snow melts. We went for a hike, past Discovery Point, up the West Rim Drive to Wizard Island Overlook on foot. The views, freshly fallen snow and lack of other humans pleased us all!

After our fabulous hike, we drove back the short distance to Rim Café and Gift Shop which opened at 10AM. It is the only building open in the park right now. The other buildings still remain under many feet of snow. The top of the crater at Rim Village Visitor Center and Crater Lake Lodge just around the bend from the café, get 50 feet of snow a year! We enjoyed a takeout lunch of hot pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw  before heading back down around 12:30pm…just as the the parking lot began to fill with visitors : )

We enjoyed our afternoon on the dog friendly grounds at the Aspen Inn. Gary grilled hot dogs for our dinner, on their community gas grill, and we ate salad and baked beans.  We then drove back up to Crater Lake for sunset! The Inn’s owners, Heidi and Shannon had suggested the evening trip to us. Although the sun sets behind mountains and trees, and not glowing in the crater, we still got a great western sky and enjoyed the only two other cars that were up there.  And one was from AZ! I also shot a picture of a mountain in the western distance, from the edge of the Crater. I was trying to get the sunset on the snowcapped peak and unknowingly caught a still shot of two flocks, of what I assume are geese, flying past 1) the actual mountain and 2) on the right of the picture. See below.

Our next post will be about us heading south on the Volcanic Legacy Oregon Scenic Byway. We traveled on it a bit to and from the Crater. We plan to stop at the Upper Klamath Natural Wildlife Refuge and Klamath Lake where 1 million migrating birds typically pass through each spring and according to the Oregon Travel Guide is home to the largest concentration of Bald Eagles in the lower 48!