Crater Lake - The Bluest Blue Ever!

Crater Lake in southern Oregon - untouched photo.

Monday, July 1st: 

We checked out of the eclectic AirBnB in Trinidad, CA at 10 am, heading to Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, another highly anticipated stop on our trip.   The drive was beautiful - we first had the Smith River and then the Rogue River flowing right next to the highway, with views of rapids and riffles most of the way.  We drove straight to Crater Lake NP, arriving around 4 pm, and had only a short wait at the entrance station to enter the park.   We were surprised to learn at the visitor center that the hikes we had planned to do at Crater Lake were all closed due to excessive snow and fallen rocks on the trails.   Snow in July!   That was a bit of a bummer, as none of that information was communicated on their website.   

Still snow on July 1st!

We had originally planned to hike Garfield Peak Trail and Mount Scott trail, but we had to come up with a Plan B.    The ranger recommended the Sun Notch trail to us on that first day, and it turned out to be a great introduction; an easy short hike that gives you views of Crater Lake.   The hike had some snow, and we got our first glimpse of Crater Lake - what a site to behold!    The bluest blue we’ve ever seen.   We were excited for the adventures ahead in Crater Lake!  Some pictures from this hike below:

The "Phantom Ship" in
Crater Lake

We went and checked into our AirBnB in Shady Cove, OR.  The new AirBnB was spacious and was right on the Rogue River - it was perfect.    We made a dinner of Vegan Thai Curry.   Cindy cut herself pretty badly slicing veggies for dinner (I think there was some Dulce Vida involved in this incident), it was fortunate we had brought a good first aid kit with us.   After dinner we sat on the deck outside our AirBnB,  A doe and her twin fawns came to feed just a few yards away from us, Cindy was thrilled.    

Tuesday, July 2nd:

On Tuesday we slept in and decided to head to Crater Lake in the afternoon.   The temperatures at our AirBnB were in the low 90s, but Crater Lake is at such a high elevation the temperatures there are typically 20 degrees cooler.  

The story of Crater Lake is fascinating and interesting.   Crater Lake is a caldera (a large volcanic crater).   About 8,000 years ago it was a mountain, Mount Mazama, towering about 12,000 feet high. A massive magma pool had been forming under Mount Mazama for thousands of years, until about 8,000 years ago, when the pressure from the magma exploded into a major eruption that collapsed the top 4,000 feet of the mountain, forming the caldera.    Over the course of the next several hundred years, rain and snow filled the Caldera with water to a depth of 1,943 feet!   Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the USA, and has a volume of 4.5 cubic miles of water.  It has enough water to give every person on earth 750 gallons of it’s pure water.   No rivers flow in or out of Crater Lake - the balance of snowfall and evaporation keep it’s lake level consistent (it averages about 45 feet of snow each year).  It only has fish because it was stocked about 40 years ago.   Because it is so pure, it has one of the highest lake visibilities in the world, with visibility in some places up to 150 feet deep.   This depth and clarity result in the deep blue color - the other colors of the spectrum are absorbed and blue is reflected back.  

We arrived at the entrance around 1:00 pm, only to find a long line of cars on the road waiting to get into the park.  We waited in line a little over an hour to get to the entrance station.   We quickly learned it’s much better to arrive in the morning.    We decided to hike the Cleetwood Cove Trail, the only hike in the park that lets you access the water.   The hike down was easy with lots of great views of the lake.   After arriving at the bottom we touched the water, which we were told was 38 degrees.   Despite the cold water, a few people were brave enough to jump in!

After a nice break at the bottom, we started the hike back up.  Now we know why this is considered a strenuous hike - ~800 feet of elevation gain in a mile, so the trail is quite steep.  We kept a slow and steady pace and made it up just fine.    Even though we had been told there would be snow on this trail we didn’t see any evidence of it.   

We drove to a few other scenic viewpoints in the park, and we saw some unusual things along the way.  We saw a couple in the snow taking a picture next to the road, tripod mount with a 35mm camera - nothing unusual about that except the woman, who had long black hair, was topless and only covered by her hair...  We also saw a bride with her veil on bent over and vomiting in front of her car, with her groom (in a tan suit) consoling her.  So a little bit of everything in Crater Lake!   No pictures of those two things to share, thought those were better left to the imagination.

We arrived back home for a pasta dinner, we made fresh sauce from 5 lbs of tomatoes, it was delicious.   We had a relaxing evening, the doe and her twins visited again, and we were excited for our last day at Crater Lake

Wednesday, July 3rd:

Cindy is ready to hit the
Discovery Point Trail!

On Wednesday, we decided to get up early - we left our AirBnB by 7:45 which got us to the park entrance by 9 am.   We were rewarded with only 5 cars in line for the entrance, and we headed right to Rim Village to do our next hike, the Discovery Point Trail.   The Discovery Point Trail is a rim trail that puts you right at the edge of the caldera for much of the hike at a height of about 8,000 feet.    The views were astounding - each place we stopped was more beautiful than the previous.  It was chilly when we started the hike, in the low 60s, but it was already getting hot by the time we finished the hike.   There was snow on this hike, but nothing we couldn’t manage - we didn’t need our crampons.    Some more pictures of this amazing hike below:

Notice Wizard Island in the caldera

After our hike we hit some of the gift shops in Rim Village, toured the historic lodge, and then watched the 22 minute movie about Crater Lake at the visitor center.  The movie (and ranger) were really informative, we definitely recommend watching the movie if you come here.

We headed back to our AirBnB for our last dinner, Cauliflower and Red Onion tacos, which were really delicious.   

Crater Lake was really impactful to both of us.   It’s impossible to capture in words or photos how beautiful and unique it is.  We kept thinking of the song “Indescribable” by Chris Tomlin.  Unfortunately, our time at Crater Lake has come to an end, new adventures await and we must move on.  Until next time!

Unforgettable!  Crater Lake is one of the highlights of our trip.