Oregon – Crater Lake National Park – Part Two

 

So as I mentioned in my previous post, the last two nights we stayed at Crater Lake. Not at Crater Lake Lodge but at the cabins which were a little drive from the rim.

Above is an aerial view of the lake hanging in the lobby of the lodge. As we were there in July, there was no snow… but that would be quite a sight!

I am including this overexposed photo because when I looked at it in Lightroom it gave me quite a laugh. There was no way of saving it but if you look closely you will see what amused me:

The two tall tree trunks just left of center look like two men with their arms outstretched. The tree stump to their right looks like a full-figured lady walking off in a huff. The two men are pleading with her: “Please don’t run off. We are really sorry!” But she is having none of it and is walking away with her head held high!

This is one of the boats cruising around the lake. I had a ticket for the boat trip but due to my injury from the first day I gave up the ticket to somebody else who wanted to go. There was a one-mile steep hike down to the water and the same steep hike up and as I was still feeling the effects of the concussion I didn’t want to take any chances.

When I got back to LA and visited my doctor, she grounded me for two weeks from any strenuous activity, so it was a good decision after all. Maybe I can return one day and take the boat trip. I heard reports that it was a really beautiful experience.

Two of our vans took people to the boats. But some people, like me, opted not to go on the boat so one van took us on a little drive around the rim of the crater to the Lodge. This was one of our stops…  I really loved the artistic design of the wood fence.

Just one gorgeous view after the other. The perfect combination of landscape, water, clouds and reflections.

I don’t know what those flowers are called but they seemed like something from another planet, just like the environment we were in.

 

 

 

According to Wikipedia: Stephen Tyng Mather (July 4, 1867 – January 22, 1930) was an American industrialist and conservationist who as president and owner of Thorkildsen-Mather Borax Company became a millionaire. With his friend and journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather led a publicity campaign to promote the creation of a unified federal agency to oversee National Parks administration, which was established in 1916. In 1917 Mather was appointed as the first director of the National Park Service, the new agency created within the Department of the Interior. He served until 1929, during which time Mather created a professional civil service organization, increased the numbers of parks and national monuments, and established systematic criteria for adding new properties to the federal system.

He was younger than I am now when he passed away and yet he accomplished so much. What am I doing? Spending too much time on my blog!!!!!

I had a terrible time picking which photos to include in this post. I had too many and I’m sure I zapped the wrong ones. But this gives you a good idea of how spectacular Oregon’s Crater Lake is. I didn’t want to leave but it was a lovely ending to a wonderful week in the state.

Some information about Crater Lake from Wikipedia:

Crater Lake is a caldera lake in the western United States, located in south-central Oregon. It is the main feature of Crater Lake National Park and is famous for its deep blue color and water clarity. The lake partly fills a nearly 2,148-foot (655 m)-deep caldera that was formed around 7,700 (± 150) years ago by the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama. There are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake; the evaporation is compensated for by rain and snowfall at a rate such that the total amount of water is replaced every 250 years. At 1,943 feet (592 m), the lake is the deepest in the United States, and the seventh^[3] or ninth deepest in the world, depending on whether average or maximum depth is measured.

Two islands are in Crater Lake; Wizard Island formed from a cinder cone that erupted after Crater Lake began to fill with water, and the smaller Phantom Ship has seven different trees living on it. There are also colonies of violet green swallows and several varieties of wildflowers and lichens living there.

While having no indigenous fish population, the lake was stocked from 1888 to 1941 with a variety of fish. Several species have formed self-sustaining populations. Since 2002, one of the state’s regular-issue license plate designs has featured Crater Lake. The commemorative Oregon State Quarter, which was released by the United States Mint in 2005, features an image of Crater Lake on its reverse.

Next day we bundled ourselves and all our gear into the vans to head back to Portland and the flight home.

Later on I’ll be posting photos of other areas we visited earlier in the week. We covered so much ground I felt like we were gone for a month or more.

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