Crater Lake and the Oregon Coast

I left Medford on Friday and drove to Ft. Klamath, just south of Crater Lake National Park. Unfortunately, one of the problems with doing this trip a little un-planned, is that it's virtually impossible to stay in the national park lodges at this time of year. So, instead of staying at Crater Lake Lodge, I stayed at the Aspen Inn, in Ft. Klamath, about 7 miles from the entrance to the park. It was great -- a really nice couple owns the place (Heidi and Sue), and they learned my name when I arrived and made sure to call me by name everytime they saw me. They put me in their smallest room, for $50 a night -- but the room was much larger than most of the places I've stayed! And my window looked over a little park, and the weather was fabulous, so it was really nice.

Crater Lake was an experience. First of all, while it was 60 degrees and sunny in Ft. Klamath, my car thermometer showed between 37 and 40 degrees around the lake itself! And it's snowy; I saw a short film at the visitors center which said that Crater Lake park area receives 550 INCHES of snow annually. The rim drive, which goes around the lake, has to be plowed open in the spring -- and they use sonar to find the road (copper is buried beneath it) under all that snow! They said that they can only plow through a quarter-mile a day of the road, at most -- and the entire rim is still not plowed yet! So I was able to drive the west rim, but couldn't make the round trip around the east side of the lake.

Crater Lake was once a mountain, Mount Mazama. The mountain was volcanic. Apparently, around 7700 years ago, the volcano erupted -- and it was some eruption. The estimation is that it had the power of at least 42 Mt. St. Helenses. Anyway, the magma chamber underneath the mountain emptied out, and then the mountain was left without a stable base, so the entire thing collapsed in on itself. The crater that was left continued to have small eruptions, and these formed the Wizard's Hat in the center of the lake. But overall, the area cooled, and the area filled with snow and water.

Natives lived in the area for at least 10,000 years, and they have a legend about how the crater formed; they say that the mountain god wanted a young woman from their tribe to become his wife. The woman refused, and the mountain god was angry, so he began to rumble. The woman considered sacrificing herself for the safety of the tribe, but the medicine man refused to allow her to do so. The mountain god became more and more angry, and the rumbling increased. Finally, the medicine man sacrificed himself to the mountain god, to save the young woman; when he did so, a great fire erupted from the mountain. Eventually, the fire ended and the mountain god fell. Peace was once again restored to the land. Needless to say, it must have been impressive for them to have witnessed the eruption of the volcano and the collapse of the mountain, and I imagine many of them died in the eruption.

Crater Lake was only discovered by the White Man in the late 1800s; the natives considered it sacred, and so they never told the White Man about it. But some gold prospectors found it, and eventually, it was turned into a national park in 1902 -- Crater Lake is the sixth-oldest national park.

The lake itself is really amazing to see. It's this shocking electric-blue color, which I never realized existed in nature. And compared with the bright-blue, clear sky, the lake looks like blown glass. I took lots of pictures of the lake, but none of them showed the color the way it actually appears, which is unfortunate. The lake is also the deepest in the United States, and the 7th deepest in the world, at 1942 feet. It remains 38 degrees year-round. Fish were apparently introduced some years ago, but there is no native food in the lake, so the fish populations remain small.

There is only one hike available down to the shore of the lake, the Cleetwood Cove Trail, and I hiked it. (Because the east rim was not open, most of the hiking was not available -- so I didn't have many choices!) It's 1.1 miles down to the shore, with a 700 foot elevation loss on the way down. Going down was easy....the view was amazing, and watching that intense blue was inspiring. When I got down to the dock (in July-August, you can take boat rides around the lake), I sat on the dock and ate my lunch. The shallow water is a teal-blue, but as soon as the water deepens, it turns into this bright cobalt, clear and cold. I could have sat there all day.

The hike back up was not as easy. But I learned a tortoise and hare lesson, because there was a guy who was walking up behind me. He was moving so slowly, almost like he was barely moving. His steps were small, and very, very slow. I, on the other hand, was moving relatively fast, and would pull away from him -- until I felt the need to stop and let my heart rate and breathing relax, which happened every so often. And this guy (who was younger than me, by the way), kept gaining on me while I rested. He eventually passed me, and I never saw him take a break.

So, after he passed me, I decided to take his approach: very, very slow and steady. And I never had to stop for breath again, and I felt good when I got to the rim! (And when I got to the top, there he was, sitting there smiling peacefully, almost like a guru, waiting for me to learn this lesson....) I'd always felt somewhat badly when people passed me hiking, unless I was stopped to take a break -- and even then, I felt weak. And despite my knowing that hiking is NOT a race, I guess I felt like I should be moving at a certain respectable pace. But now I know that (1) there's nothing glorious in pushing too hard, and (2) that slow and steady wins, period.

On Sunday, Father's Day, I left Ft. Klamath to go to the Oregon Coast. I had to drive through the park to get there. And again, the weather in Ft. Klamath was gorgeous -- 60 and sunny -- and the weather at Crater Lake was 33 and snowing! I'm so glad I went on Saturday, because the visibility was terrible on Sunday, and it would have been a less-memorable experience. After I left the park, the snow stopped, but it continued to rain off and on all day long. I made it to the coast, but couldn't really appreciate it because the weather was so lousy.

Along the way to the coast, I did do one very cool stop, to the Sea Lion Caves, in Florence, Oregon. It is the largest sea lion cave in the world, and the only one on the mainland; the others are all out at sea. It is a football field long, and 175 feet high. The water crashes in and out of it, and there are hundreds of sea lions inside, barking, flapping, hoisting themselves up, swimming, and resting. It was very noisy inside, and stinky -- but incredibly cool. The sea lions apparently spend the fall and winter inside the cave. As you walk outside the cave, there's a path which leads to an overlook, below which the sea lions hang out on a rocky outcropping, and which is their rookery, where they breed and raise their young in the spring and summer. The water crashes against the outcropping, and it was fun to watch the young sea lions, as they'd get in the water, swim around, and then try to get back up on the rocks -- they kept getting pushed around by the current of the waves. Eventually, though, they'd figure out a way to make it back up. I stood there and watched them for a long, long time. Very, very cool. I'm really glad that Heidi (from the Aspen Inn) had suggested it.

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice. Fortunately, the weather cleared up, and I spent the day on the coast. I had stayed in Waldport, which is very small (and my hotel on the bay was inexpensive), but spent my time in Newport, just up the coast a ways. First I went to the Oregon Coastal Aquarium, which was incredibly cool -- my favorite things were the giant Anaconda, the moon jellies, the giant octopus, all of the different anemones/sea stars/urchins, and the Pacific halibut (whose eyes migrate -- from starting with one eye on each side of their head, they migrate so that both eyes end up on one side; the adult fish swim sideways, and can bury themselves in the sandy ocean bottom up to their eyeballs!). Then I had a little lunch, did some shopping in Nye Beach, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach itself.

By the way, the entire Oregon coastline is a public park. Apparently, the state legislature designated it as such years ago, which is really cool. Nye Beach is 5 miles long, nice and sandy, and pretty calm. There are cliffs, but the water approaches the sand, not the cliffs. Unfortunately, it was cold (58 degrees) and windy out, so I didn't do more than get my toes in the water. No bikinis for me; I was dressed in jeans and a sweater! Which taught me another lesson about myself: although I like the sound of the waves and the look of the ocean, I do NOT want to live where I have to wear a sweater on the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year should be spent in shorts and a tank top, in my opinion.

Around 7pm, I left the beach itself, but I ate dinner at a restaurant which overlooked the ocean, and so I got to see the summer solstice sunset overlooking the Pacific, which was excellent. I also saw some California gray whales! They were relatively close to shore, and they kept blowing water up through their spouts, so I know they were there, but I only saw one or two of their actual bodies/tails. Anyway, it was a great way to spend the sunset.

Today, I'm off for McMinnville, in the heart of the Oregon wine country. More on that later. But I've had a great few days.