Crater Lake National Park

7700 years ago there were several volcanic eruptions occurred at Mount Mazama in southern Oregon. These explosions blew 100 times more material into the atmosphere than Mount St. Helen's did in 1980. Within 24 hours the center of the mountain imploded downward creating a huge crater 6 miles across. The magma chamber was empty so the debris filled in the bottom of the crater making it a huge bowl with no drainage. Slowly over the next several hundred years the crater filled in with water and thus we have Crater Lake. There were people living here at the time and their stories have been handed down with amazing accuracy through hundreds of generations. Several woven sandals carbon dated to 10,000 years ago were discovered nearby.

Crater Lake is one of the most beautiful natural things I have ever seen. The National Park has been developed just enough to make it accessible without destroying it.

Crater Lake is the deepest and clearest lake in North America. The clarity gives it a deep blue color that has to be seen to believe. This view of Wizard Island is taken from Rim Village looking north.

At the Crater Lake Lodge

Life is Good

Taken from the Lodge looking away from the lake to the west

The Cascade range. The flatness here is from glaciers

Another view of the lake with Wizard Island looking south

The Park Service runs a trolley that drives the 23 miles long road around the crater. There are  a dozens stops at various vistas. Our guide was volunteer ranger, Jim Allen. He has been volunteering in various National Parks for 5 years.

A self portrait!

A closer look at Wizard Island from Discovery Point.

A Clark's Nutcracker, named after William Clark of  the Lewis & Clark exploration.
This bird's diet consists mainly of the seeds of the Whitebark Pine which, in turn, depends on the bird to spread  its' seeds. The Whitebark Pine is threatened by extinction by White Pine Blister Rust and Mountain Pine Beetles.
There is a hormonal remedy for the beetles but no help for the rust yet.

The color of the lake is a deep blue from every angle. 

Several eruptions happened in the 100 years after the original implosion of Mt Mazama with some of them rising above the water level. The island to the right of center is called Phantom Ship. 

On our third day in the park we went for a boat ride around the lake. This required a 15 mile drive from our campground to the Cleetwood Cove Trail. From the trailhead there is a 1.1 mile hike to the lake. The vertical drop is 700 feet. After the 2 hour boat ride guess what? You guessed it! You have to hike back up that 700 feet. We did just fine. I saw some people struggling especially one woman who forced me to review in my mind the elements of CPR

Debbie at the start of the hike down. The path was well laid out and had awesome views at every turn.

There are only 5 boats on the lake. 2 like this for tourists. 1 for "rescue" and 2 research boats.
That's it. No canoes, kayaks or pleasure boats allowed. If you had one how would you get it to the lake? This boat was helicoptered in 5years ago.

Our guide was Jan Allen, wife of Jim Allen pictured above. She is an archeologist by profession and has volunteered in 5 different National Parks over the last 5 years. Both of the Allens gave us tremendous information about the geology, biology, hydrology, history and everthinglolgy of the crater and the park.

A close up view of Wizard Island

The Devil's Backbone. This rock formation goes down several hundred feet below the surface.
As the magma erupted and cooled the lava cooled in different ways in different areas. This Rock was very hard while the surrounding material was soft and eventually eroded away.

In the shallow areas the water is aquamarine color

There are no rivers or springs that feed Crater Lake and none that drain it. All of the water in the lake comes form rain and snow melt which we can see below in the form of a waterfall.  Water leaves the lake via evaporation and seepage from one area that is shown later. The water level only varies a few feet from year to year. The deepest part of the lake is just short of 2000 feet deep making Crater lake the deepest in North America.

We saw dozens of such waterfalls on our trip around the lake.

Phantom Ship close up

Here you can see a shelf where the color changes from green to blue.

We had nothing but sunshine in 3 days at Crater Lake.

Here is a hard monumental rock above with softer porous lava below. The porous shelf extends well into the lake. This area accounts for the seepage of water out of the lake. In spite of extensive studies no one knows where the water goes. There is no evidence of Crater Lake's water entering into the Klamath or Rogue River Basins.

On the way back up the trail we had lots of nice places to catch our breath and enjoy one more look.

I just could not stop taking pictures. Believe me, I said to myself several times,
"Enough with the pictures. Put the camera away."
Next thing you knew there was the camera in my hands again.

3 days in Crater lake national Park is just barely enough. 5 to 7 days would have allowed us to try more of dozen or so hikes around the park. Mazama Village and Campground were perfect for us. On lour last night here we saw about 12 Airstreams in the F loop that were from Northern California on a caravan. Looked like fun. We are headed now to Arcata California along the northern coast. Look for our next post.

Mount St. Helens

On Sunday of Labor Day Weekend we drove to Mount St. Helens, the site of the horrendous 1980 eruption. We took I-5 to Castle Rock and The Spirit Lake Memorial Highway (WA 504). This drive rises from about 500 ft to 4000 ft above sea level. It is about 48 miles from Castle Rock to the Johnson Ridge Observatory, the closest one can get to the mountain without special permits. This beautiful road has dozens of pullouts with fabulous views. There are four visitor centers along the way.

The first visitor center is about 5 miles from Castle Rock.

The ranger was giving a talk as we arrived. Unfortunately the foreground was in deep shadow and the mountain in bright sunlight.  Without HDR I could not get the whole scene in the photo.

Here is the view behind the ranger in the above photo.

The first of dozens of pullouts with great views. After stopping a 4 or 5 of these we
became jaded and were more selective

There is a small stream running through the valley but most of what looks
like river is actually the remains of the lave flow

Both Mt St Helens and Frank are missing something at the top.

Up at the Johnson Ridge Observatory

Dogs were only permitted on a 3-4 foot strip about 100 yards long.
It seems that federal facilities like national parks are very dog unfriendly.

Rosie and the Golden puppy became quick friends.

The view from the Observatory. There is a 20 minute film that explains the nature of the eruption and the aftermath. Luckily the US Geological Survey had anticipated this eruption several weeks in advance and convinced the Forest Service to limit access to the mountain. Still 57 lives were lost.

This angst-producing bridge is about 400 ft above the valley floor.
I felt the the side walls could have been 2 feet higher.

When we came back to our campground we took a walk on the beach. It has a grand view onto the Columbia River. Lots of driftwood. Too bad so many people leave beer cans and other trash behind.

Sharky has a terrific view from his resting place.

The Columbia Riverview RV Park and Campground in Woodland Washington

Diva stands out even among giants.