Oregon Trail - Day 6

You will notice a theme today - all the pictures seem to be of the same place... give yourself a cookie, you are right! We drove northeast from Medford to Crater Lake National Park, about 1.5 hrs away on a beautiful (and nearly empty) two-lane highway through the forest. When we left Medford at 9am, it was already over 80F and heating up rapidly. We pulled up to the ranger station 90 minutes later to be told it was "Free Admission Day" by the lovely Park Rangerette, complete with Smoky the Bear hat and all! As you drive up to "Rim Village", you get your first look at the lake... unbelievable! The Rim Drive is 33 miles long, with over 50 viewpoints, all providing spectacular views and vistas. The photo above is taken from Discovery Point, the first "main" viewpoint as you proceed clockwise around the rim from the Village. They had just run the "Rim Run" (a 1/2 marathon on the East Rim) when we arrived, so just as we left the Village, many of the runners and their families were just arriving... perfect timing! One thing that I didn't realize until I was gasping for breath climbing a mediocre grade later was the fact that you are between 7,000' to 8,000' above sea level... the air is a little thin... there is no way I could have run more than a few hundred meters, let alone a 1/2 marathon!

The photo above is of Wizard Island, taken from the Watchman Overlook, the second "main" viewpoint from the Village. You can take a boat ride from the only lake access point at Cleetwood Cove on the north end of the lake and get dropped off on Wizard Island for either 3 or 6 hours. You can then hike to the top of it and look into the mini-volcanic cone at the top. The downside is the 1-hour hike from the Rim Road down to the water... 1250' elevation drop... then enjoy your boat ride and rest up, because it's 1+ hours back up again... and you have to climb back up that 1250' you came down!!

A shot of Crater Lake taken from the International Space Station in 2006 (don't ask me what kind of strings I had to pull to get THAT shot!). You can see Wizard Island at the 10 o'clock position, and you can see parts of the Rim Road.

The lake viewed from the Rim Village, looking almost exactly like it did when we were there today. The water is just that blue, or even more blue, depending on the sun angle. There was not a cloud in the sky until nearly 4pm, when we reached Sun Notch, the last viewpoint. By the time we were back in Medford (5:30pm and 98F), there was a wall of clouds to the east and massive flashes of summertime heat lightning going off regularly... likely going to be a few fires in the forests to the east tonight, sadly.

To top off our wonderful day (sunshine, 98F, incredible vistas, hardly any traffic, free admission to the Park...), we went to get a few small supplies at the Fred Meyer next door to our hotel, and almost everything was on sale! And there is no sales tax in Oregon! So we accumulated more than a few small supplies. And then the lovely cashier, Paige, said "Would you like to use your 15% coupon today?" A guy could learn to love it here!

Big road trip tomorrow... all I will say is "big trees" and "not Oregon"... more later!