Crater Lake

Truth be told, my motivation has been a little lacking lately.  I’m over a week behind in getting my posts up.  The trip has been great, so it’s not that.  I think that our days have just been so busy with activities and the kids and moving around that, at the end of the day, I just want to lose myself in a good book.  However, I know that if I wait too long to post again, I’ll completely fall out of the habit (and I do enjoy it when I am posting), so here we are at Crater Lake…

Other than driving through parts of Redwood National Park, Crater Lake in Oregon is the first National Park we’ve spent any time at during our trip (many CA state parks though).  Not knowing much about Crater Lake, my first thought as we drove through the entrance was that we finally get to use our National Parks Pass – not that the $10 we saved paid for the $80 we spent, but it was still satisfying.  My thoughts quickly turned as got our first glimpse of the natural beauty of the lake.

If you don’t know much about Crater Lake, let me enlighten you (as I was).  It’s the deepest lake in the U.S. and one of the cleanest lakes in the world.  Visibility is over 100 feet on a good day.  It was formed when the volcano imploded and dropped from 12,ooo feet to 6,100 feet in a day.  It must have been a sight to see, and even though it happened nearly 8000 years ago, the stories the local Indians told about the event survived through the ages.  There’s a lot of interesting stories and facts about the lake itself, but you’d appreciate it much more if you visited yourself… which I highly recommend… the volcano boat tour is a must do.

Our campsite at Crater Lake: the public (gov't owned) campgrounds are almost always the best because you have more space (in your site and from your neighbors) and better scenery. This one didn't disappoint.

Secret Agents: One of the boys favorite games when we're camping is to pretend they are secret agents. This is one of the hideouts they set up.

One of our first views of Crater Lake... it's so BLUE!

Worth the hike: It's a mile hike down to the dock where you pick up the boat to tour Crater Lake. Going down is the easy part... you have to hike up after your tour is over.

On the tour boat (yes, that's me in the picture)

"Phantom ship" - so called because it vanishes into the background as you get farther away

"Take a picture, Daddy" - Jake appreciates the scenic backdrop (but of course knows it's better if he's in the picture)

Crater Lake again

And again... this one shows "Wizard Island" - the only real island in the lake. Some tours will drop you there for 3 hours, but we missed that boat

Exhausted but happy: Nate and Jake are glad to be back in Rusty after the hike back up from Crater Lake (the equivalent of 65 flights of stairs took its toll).