Side Trail: A Day at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Eastward mirrored view of Wizard Island (WI) from West Rim Drive

Who: M and Hank

What: A two day sightseeing road trip

When: June 6 & 7, 2016

Where: Crater Lake N.P. (CLNP)

Why: Check a box on my bucket list
How: Hire car from Portland

Note about viewing pictures: Double-click on any picture for a full-sized gallery of all. There are a bazillion photos online, but I wanted to share ours with captions. 

Note on text: I am typing one-handed due to shoulder surgery, so there will be minimum storytelling, which is probably not a bad thing. if you want a fuller account call me. If you know little about CLNP, do your own research. It's a massive collapsed volcano.

Ever since I read Boy Scouts at Crater Lake by Walter P. Eaton, published in 1922 during the formative years of the scouting movement in the US, I have had an aching desire to visit this place. Last month we traveled to Portland to visit the boy and his girl for about two weeks so we decided that we would take a couple of days, drive south for a few hundred miles and just do it. We spent two days on the trip but only Day One in the park arriving in the morning. It was early in the season, so much of the park was still inaccessible due to snow. I really just wanted to see it, so we spent much time just gazing from various vantage points. We overnighted in Chemult and on Day Two traveled back along less crowded roads with phenomenal landscapes of their own. The weather was extraordinary; see how it changes through the day as the images progress in chronological order.

View east across lake

South to north view with lunch - 5 miles across - still mirror lake surface

Time for a movie

From South Rim

Pollen swirls 

WI eastern side

Rim outcropping, clouds building

Roof snow

Snow abounds

My Post Card Sequence

Think they will sell?

East side WI

Get out of the picture you old fart; rain at right

West rim

Beyond the rim

Mini-volcano, see the caldera?

How about now?

Nearby peak

In the Cascades

West Rim Road at The Watchman

On top of The Watchman

Across the rim road

A few wildflowers blooming

WI below snow-covered outcropping

On July 4th we watched A Capitol Fourth, a PBS TV production of entertainment and fireworks in and around the National Mall in DC. The program was sponsored in part by the National Park Service celebrating its centennial year. During the program a visual presentation showing many beautiful images of national parks was shown; when views of Crater Lake came on my throat tightened and tears flowed - We live in a truly wonderful country full of natural majesty and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to see this marvel of nature.