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Published: July 27th 2009
July 24th Crater Lake, OR
We woke up early and we didn't have much to do to get our day started as we had slept in the parking lot of the National Park. We got our money back and some coffee to go and headed off to see Crater Lake. We had to make it to the trailhead to hike down to the lake to take the boat tour.
We stopped at a few lookouts to get our first look at Crater Lake. We were not dissapointed. It is spectacular. It is such a vivid blue it looks llike someone poured blue dye into it. We had never seen anything like it in our lives.
We had to drive about 15 miles around the rim to get to the trailhead where we had to hike down to get to the tourboat. It is the only access to the lake as it's basically in a volcano valley. You have to hike a mile down the side of the mountain to get there. The tourboats are the only boats allowed on the lake besides the National Park Service research boats.
The tour was very interesting. Our guide was a
young girl who is a geography major at Oregon State University. She is a junior in college and a US Park Ranger. Pretty cool! What a summer job! She did a great job of explaining the landscape and what happened when Mt Mazama erupted and collapsed to form this beautifull lake.
Crater Lake is the cleanest clearest lake in the world and the deepest lake in the US. It's water is only from snowmelt and rainwater. There is no creek or river that feeds into it. It was a beautiful day to take a boat tour. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sky was a shade or two lighter than the lake. The blue is just unbelievable. I'm sure the pictures don't do it justice. The color has something to do with how the water refracts all colors but a little green and a lot of blue.
The boat tour lasted 2 hours and then of course the only way to get back up to the RV was to hike back up the mountain! The altitude got to me a little. Phil didn't have a problem but I had to stop a number of
times to catch my breath. I didn't mind though as I was able to get a few more views of Crater Lake!
When we got back to the top we headed west again towards Redwood National and State Parks. California here we come! When we crossed the state line we had to stop for an agriculture check. They wanted to know if we had any cherries, mangoes or avocados. we felt like we were crossing the border from Canada into the US. Anyways, we passed the check and arrived at the KOA in Crescent City, CA to spend the night. They had great tent campsights set right in the giant redwoods that we could walk the trails thru. Phil went running and was able to end his run with a run thru the giant trees. Tomorrow we will drive south thru the park.
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