I've said it before and I'll say it again, I was very excited to see this park. Crater Lake is one of those iconic American beauties that some people wait a lifetime to see.
William Gladstone Steel was one of those people. He saw an article on the newspaper used to wrap his school lunch about the discovery of a lake so beautiful that people were traveling from around the country to see it. From that day forward it was his lifetime goal to see, and eventually to preserve, the lake for future generations. He fought for years to get a bill through congress that would protect the lake, and finally found his man in Theodore Roosevelt who could get the bill through by twisting some arms as President. Anyway, enough about the history, let's get to the funny story.
Lacey and I left California again, a little over a month after we had left the first time, and crossed the border into Oregon. Our first stop was an unplanned one, at Oregon Caves National Monument. We took the 90 minute tour through the cave and got to see some pretty awesome rock formations.
Flowrock covers the walls of the cave in "wetter" areas
More flowrock coming from a crack in the cave
This cave is unique in a couple ways, but one of the ones I found interesting as a nerd is that it is marble instead of the usual limestone. Although both rocks are primarily calcium carbonate, limestone is a sedimentary rock while marble is a metamorphic rock. So basically, marble is a harder form of limestone that has been compressed by heat and time. Anyway, water still flows through the cave and through the cracks in the cave. That water carries a small amount of calcium carbonate and, as it very slowly drips and runs, it leaves calcium carbonate deposits behind that form these cool flowrock formations like the chandeliers above or the waterfall below.
Quite the geology lesson right? I just hope it is all correct.
Anyway, after our cave tour we headed up to Crater Lake with a short stop at
Crate Lake Cellars winery! This place was cool because we got to taste wines for free and it is a small operation of just a dude and his wife. We tasted, bought, and moved on after some nice conversation with the owner.
Anyway, enough build up already. We made it up to Crater Lake to find that the campground was still (for the most part) under a deep blanket of snow! Yeah, that's right, snow on June 23rd!
One of our options for a campsite
A better option, this one had been shoveled out
Anyway, after all the anticipation, we set up camp, but it was starting to get dark and it was raining/snowing/sleeting/hailing on us. So, we made some dinner, got some hot cocoa, and hit the tent. We played some Yahtzee in the tent and went to bed.
The next morning we finally made our way up to the lake. It is literally the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I finally found a good (free) program for panorama stitching
The required blublogger shot
Anyway, because of the cold, snow, and potential to be buried overnight, we decided to leave the park after only one day and drove down to Diamond Lake to get a campsite there. It was awesome! The lake is between two mountains, Mt. Bailey and Mt. Thielsen.
Mt. Bailey
Mt. Thielsen
Our campsite was great and I even had a chance to go for a run through the campground on the bike trail. It was also about 15 degrees warmer, so that was a bonus.
So we camped there and had a great time. The next morning we decided to go to the National Forest ranger station at Toketee and find out what good hikes there were to do in the area. They told us there were waterfalls everywhere and even a hot springs that you could hike to. We decided to make it waterfall and hot springs day. There aren't any pictures from the hot springs because it would have been hard to get one without an old naked man in it.
Toketee Falls
270 foot Watson Falls (way in the background)
A closer look at Watson Falls
Taking pictures of ourselves again
Clearwater Falls
So that was our trip to the Crater Lake area. We left the area and drove up to Bend, OR to enjoy some Deschutes beers that night and enjoyed a night in a hotel because it was supposed to rain. More pictures below, and look out for our next post from Corvallis and Eugene!
Another shot of Crater Lake
Wizard Island, a cinder cone in the middle of the lake that erupted shortly after Mt. Mazama
Finally, a picture someone else took of us
The snow depth poles are huge here!
One last picture of the lake, this time from the Western side
Sally in front of one of the huge snowbanks
A giant, and very mean looking bear statue at a sporting goods/guns/liquor store... a perfect combination
