2012/05 Western USA trip - Crater Lake |
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We were headed for Crater Lake, but knew that the campground up there on the crater rim was closed, still buried in snow. The report was that part of the rim road was open, so the plan was to camp outside the park at Diamond Lake and drive in.
As I took the turn to Diamond Lake there was a sign telling us that the north entrance to the park was still closed, so we quickly backtracked and drove to Fort Klamath, about forty miles south on the other side of the mountain. The campground there was in a pretty spot, just above Fort Creek, but the bathrooms, as always, were an adventure. The stalls had been built by someone who’d forgotten to test his measurements as he went along; it was impossible to sit on the toilets without banging your head on the door. The showers were a bit more practical but the water was sulphurous, the penalty for living on the edge of a volcano.
The weather was fine where we were but it looked murky ahead as we drove up to the south entrance on Mount Mazama, the mountain that 
houses Crater Lake. Mazama erupted explosively about 8000 years ago, and collapsed leaving a caldera which now holds a lake nearly 2000 feet deep.
The crater rim is mostly above 7000 feet, and we were soon driving with deep snow all around the road. We drove to the end of the road, and parked with ten foot high snow banks all around us.
Crater Lake is one of those places that makes your jaw drop, even after you’ve seen the pictures and know what to expect. I think it looks at its best on a clear summer’s day but it’s still an amazing sight on a cloudy day with mist obscuring the far shore. Right below us was Wizard Island, formed by a later volcanic burp.
The weather was constantly changing with patches of blue sky, swirling mist, and occasional snow showers. The snow underfoot was slick so the trick was to get close enough to the rim for good pictures but not so close that you slide off the edge and drop into the lake a thousand feet below. The hotel and the coffee shop were open, but only a couple of overlooks; at the last one we could just see the “Phantom Ship”, a lava formation that protrudes from the lake. Back in 1988, Karen and Joanna and I circled that formation for a couple of hours, adrift in our broken down tour boat.
We left while the weather was still good as I wasn’t too keen on driving down the mountain in a snowstorm. At the bottom of the mountain we caught up with a bunch of cattle being herded Oregon-style with a pair of pickup trucks and a very skillful and enthusiastic dog. Any cow that strayed into the ditches was chased out until it was back on the road. They were only being moved from one field to another but it was an entertaining quarter of an hour.