Day 44-August 1, 2012-A Day at Crater Lake
Another great day at another National Park. The star of this park is Crater Lake, the deepest in the US at 1943’ It’s 6 miles at its widest and 4-1/2 miles at its narrowest. It was created 7700 years ago when Mt. Mazama erupted and imploded on itself created a hole in the earth (known as a caldera). It was discovered in 1853. All the water in the crater comes from snow melt or rain. The only boat allowed on it is one tour boat. There is only one access to it and you have to climb down a steep cliff to get to it. The deep blue color has something to do with the spectrum and the way the human eye sees color and it is gorgeous. It was a cloudless sunny day, too which made it even nicer. There are two islands in it, Wizard Island and Phantom Ship which is over 400,000 years old. They are both the tops of other smaller volcanoes. The highest point we drove to was over 8000’ feet at and that point the temp plummets to below freezing every night even though it was 68 when we were there. That explains why there was still snow in many places, that and the fact that last year they got over 51 feet of snow and the road we took in didn’t open this year until July 19th when the snow plows could get in. We only saw one small waterfall and another big one, Vidae Falls, which splashed when it cascaded on the rocks.
To get into the park you first drive through what they call a pumice forest, miles of miles of pumice that was caused when the volcano blew up and the lava mixed with air. It’s as light as air and ranged in size from a quarter to a good sized rock.
There is a 33-mile road which goes around the lake with thirty viewpoints and every one is different. There are also trails leading to different views but we only did one to see the Phantom Ship better. It was a steep climb up and when we got there the place where you could see it was roped off. We found out through other people up there that workers were building a rock wall and if we walked past them we could get a better view and they were right, it was worth the climb up. Going down was a snap, but really dusty. Some of the places on this drive have no shoulder on either side and a times it was a white-knuckled experience. There’s a sign that says “Danger-Falling May Cause Death-Stay Away From
Cliffs”. OK.
We stopped for lunch at the Lodge. There’s always a lodge at the National parks, they always have a fire going in the fireplace, a great view of whatever you’re there to see, (we’ve learned to ask for a table near the window), great, reasonably priced food and wonderful service by interns from all over the world. They always have great history behind them too and most of them were built around 1915. Wildlife is friendly here too, especially chipmunks, they’re used to getting handouts. I found out that beautiful blue bird with the head feathers is called a Steller Jay. Oh, and I took way too many pictures.
Headed back to camp about 6PM and went to the local (and only) pizza place on Diamond Lake, but decided on a salad and the broasted chicken which was a great choice. The pizza probably would have been good, too. The owners at the campground told us the (one and only) store on the lake next to the pizza place had good Umpqua Ice Cream so, of course, we had to try it. Harry asked the lady how many scoops were in the bowl she was filling and she said “One”. There were probably five scoops in it and she kept going. She then said we could split our “1” scoop between more than one flavor. So we got “1” scoop of 2 different flavors, would you believe huckleberry cheesecake? There’s enough left for two more nights, at least. And it was $2.75 for “1” scoop. She also gave us a great tip on a campground for tomorrow night. Went back to to camp and looked at maps, heading through California to Reno, NV (are thereabouts) tomorrow.