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.

Stop Nine - Wheeler Oregon

We have moved on to Paradise Cove RV Park just outside of Wheeler, Oregon.  The weather has been nice with highs in the 60’s and lows in the 50’s. Paradise Cove looks onto the Nehalem Bay.  We have enjoyed seeing Blue Herons fishing in the bay.

We forgot to mention that Jessica flew in from Phoenix to Portland last Wednesday and drove to Newport to meet up with us for about a week. She was looking forward to seeing the coast again and getting out of the Phoenix heat.

We’re still checking out the various lighthouses and the many beaches.   We took a drive toward Portland on an Oregon Scenic Road which goes through the Tillamook State Forest.  After many years of hiking in New Mexico and Colorado you get a much different feel with the wet and dense forests here.  There are ferns, flowers, and moss everywhere.  Very pretty.

For the Costco shoppers - we took a tour of the Tillamook cheese factory with free samples of cheese and a look into the processing plant.  That same day we stopped by the Latimer Quilt & Textile Museum.  This is a living, working museum whose mission is to preserve, promote, display and facilitate the creation of textile arts.  They had many antique quilts on display that were meticulously hand quilted.  After that we drove to the Cape Lookout State Park.  Jessica and I took a one-way two mile hike on the North Trail.  Gloria drove the to end point and hiked to meet us around the last mile on the trail.  There were beautiful views of the coast along the way. 

The next day, we drove up to Astoria. We drove over the Astoria-Megler Bridge.  The bridge is a steel cantilever through truss bridge that spans the Columbia River between Astoria and Point Ellice, Washington.  We then slowly worked our way back down the coast stopping at various beaches and state parks.  We spent a day at Cannon Beach for some beach and shopping time.  Sorry - no stops for Goonies fans.

We start our move inland and will miss the coast with the nice locations and great temperatures.  Next we are on to the Columbia river area just east of Portland.