Stop Thirteen - Lee Vining CA

We have moved on to Lee Vining, CA for a four night stay.  We took day trip to Bodie State Historic Park. Bodie was one of the richest gold strikes in California.  It was once known as the most lawless, wild and tough mining camp in the West.  We took a self-guided tour of the ghost town.  Only 5% of the original town still remains.  A few of buildings that are still standing are: a school, a methodist church, several houses, the general store, a hotel, and a boarding house.  The population of Bodie during its heyday was 8,500.  The school’s highest enrollment was 615.  The town of Bodie was named after W.S. Bodey.  (Yes, the spelling is correct.  They changed the spelling when they named the town.)  He stuck gold in 1859.  He ended up dying in a blizzard and never saw the town come to life.  It became a boomtown in 1877 and had more than 2,000 buildings.  By the end of the mining operations, Bodie grossed more than $33 million.  

We spent the rest of our stay in the east side of Yosemite National Park.  The visitation numbers to the popular national parks are through the roof. You need to get where you want to go early and be able to put up with the crowds. To beat the crowds, we need to start hitting these places in late spring and early fall but this requires getting lucky with the weather.

We now have a three day marathon drive home through the deserts of Southern California and Northern Arizona.  We have really enjoyed the two months we have taken to travel but home always calls.  

Stop twelve - Susanville, CA

We just have one day here so we headed to Lassen Volcanic National Park. One day does not do this park justice.  There is still snow blocking trails but we had a great day exploring the park.  Four types of volcanoes can be found here: Shield, composite, cinder cone, and plug dome.  Lassen Peak is one of the largest plug dome volcanoes in the world.  Its last eruptions were between 1914 and 1921, with the largest explosion on May 22, 1915.  Scientists continue to monitor the landscape.  No one can say when or where the next eruption will occur, only that it will.  Within the volcanic landscape you will find gurgling mud pots and hissing steam vents.  You will smell sulfur springs.  It is a very active landscape.

Helen Lake is still covered in ice due to a late snowfall.

Lassen Peak and Broken Mountain

Our next stop is Lee Vining, CA for a four night stay.  This will be the last stop before the three day march to get home.

Stop Eleven - Crater Lake Part Two

Clicking any photo should give you a full screen version.  I have also added a few videos on my YouTube account - search for puestads.

Last Monday, we headed back to Crater Lake to get some full moon pictures and saw this beautiful sunset.

One thing Oregon has is plenty of water falls  -  I have a video with some of them on my YouTube channel, puestads.

Last Friday, I drove over to Crater Lake for a 2-hour cruise.  It starts with a hike down to the lake which is about 1.5  miles and 700 feet down - good and "bad".  I learned about how the crater was formed and current issues that now effect the lake.  They lose about 2 million gallons of water an hour through evaporation and seepage through the caldera below.  As of now they are not sure where the water goes as it escapes out of the caldera.  The fifth picture is a tree stump that they first saw about 100 years ago but at that time they thought nothing of it,  About three years ago Sunday Morning had a small piece about it and then it became "big news".  The stump is about 26 feet tall and appears to have a rock stuck in the roots of the tree that keep it standing up.  It floats all around the lake.

Cleetwood Cove

Wizard Island

Phantom Ship

The Old Man

Monday, we drove up to Crater Lake for one last look and some hikes - wow's us every time.

View of the Phantom Ship from the Sun Notch Overlook

View from Watchman Peak

The Pinnacles

We went on a day hike up the Rogue River Trail for our last day here.  We have never stayed in one place for two weeks before and there is definitely a learning curve with knowing that you do not have to fill each day.

Next stop will be in Susanville, California and a visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Stop Eleven - Crater Lake Part 1

We have now moved on to the Crater Lake area in Southern Oregon and will be here 14 days.  The landscape as you can see changes widely during the drive. We arrived at Crater Lake RV park around 4 pm.

Today we drove up to Crater Lake National Park and drove the road that circles the caldera.  The road is 33 miles long and has around 30 pullouts for different views.   The lake is around 1,900 feet deep and is the deepest lake in the states.  There is no water running in or out of the lake and all of its water comes from rain and snow.  The area averages 530 inches of snow each year.  The park service only completely opened the road around the lake yesterday.  Crater Lake was formed by a volcanic eruption of Mt. Mazama.  Wizard Island is a volcanic cinder cone which forms an island on the west side of the lake.

Panoramic View of the lake.

Vidae Falls

Phantom Ship

Wizard Island

The next day we drove up to Crater Lake and tried to get some tickets for a boat tour of the Lake.  Their policy is to sell half of the tickets online and the other half can be purchased one day in advance at the lodge, store, and lake kiosk.  All of the reservable tickets are gone for the remainder of our stay so we need to show up each day and see if we can purchase tickets for the next day.  They hadn't started ticket sales until Saturday so we will see how this works out.  The only boats you see on the lake are tour boats and science vessels.  There is only one way to the lake shore which is a steep 1.1 mile hike.   At the shore, you may board a boat, go fishing, or swimming.  Later, we stopped by the Rogue River Gorge and the Natural Bridge on the way back from the lake.  The Natural Bridge is a lava tube that the river enters into and comes back out of about 50 yards downstream.

Pearsoney Falls

Today we took a walk through the small town of Prospect, Oregon.  There is a walking trail that leads you to these pretty falls.

Stop Ten - Cascade Locks

We have moved on to the Cascade Locks KOA just outside of Cascade Locks, Oregon.  The weather has been nice with highs in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s and no rain.  This park overlooks the Columbia River and gorge which is a very scenic location.

We got to our campground early enough to do some sightseeing.  We took the Bridge of the Gods into Washington where we drove up the Columbia River.  We came to the very popular  Mayer State Park where wind and kite surfers surf for hours.  We spoke to a local man and he said that this area is very popular because of how the cool air currents from the coast meet the warm air currents from the mountains.  This makes wind conditions perfect for sailing.

 Jessica came with us from the coast but needed to catch a flight home the next day.  She was going out late in the afternoon so we took a drive all the way around Mt. Hood with a stop at Timberline Lodge.  We didn’t have any time to stop and do anything but still took in the views during the drive.  It was nice to have Jessica with us for seven days and now it is back to just us two.

Most of our time with this stop has had us doing chores and maintenance on the trailer and truck.  We did manage to visit Multnomah Falls while Jessica was still here.  Then hiked on the Herman Creek trail later in the week.  Our turnaround point on the Herman Creek hike is an area called the Herman Creek Pinnacles.  The pinnacles are large chunks of basalt that slid off the cliff face above during ancient landslides.  This trail junctions with the Pacific Crest Trail two miles in.  

We start our move south and will park just outside Crater Lake.  It will start heating up but we are looking forward to Southern Oregon  which has many options for outdoor activities. 

If you wish to access previous posts just click the blog name and you will be redirected to the website with all prior posts.  You can also double click any picture to see a larger version.