Trailer Trip 2014: Crater Lake National Park

Wednesday morning we left Mount Vernon, Oregon and drove to Crater Lake National Park. It’s in the southwest part of Oregon. The landscape changed fast from scrubby plateau at the fossil beds to conifer-forested mountain around Crater Lake. I don’t know how far the trip was exactly, probably close to 200 miles, but it took most the day. We also made a couple of stops for gas and groceries.

We came in the West Entrance to the park about 5:00 hoping to get a camping spot at the park campground but it had closed for the season on October 5. We should have checked that out before we got there because it was a 23 mile drive upgrade from the highway with the trailer in tow. But there were other possibilities once we got back down to highway 62. We pulled into a Forest Service Campground but the sign said “not recommended for RVs over 28 feet”. So we thought about this for a little while and then a man came out of the campground so I asked him about it. It turned out he worked for the concessionaire that operates the campground and he was closing it for the season. He asked how many nights we needed and I said two. So he said we could stay two nights and he would take us to a site where we could fit in.

It was a squeeze getting back in the campground, especially between two big trees on a curve. The awning got by with about two inches to spare. But somehow we got it in and here we are. We are the only ones in the whole campground. It is beautiful, gigantic pine trees must be 4 feet in diameter, and the Rogue River runs right behind our site.

We went into the National Park today and spent the whole day on the east and west rim drives. I have to thank Ian Prime for suggesting this be one of our stops. (Thanks, Ian.) This place is just incredible and I would say to anybody, Do Not Miss It if you are close by. In fact, go out of your way to come here, it is worth it.

I’ll explain a little as I can. Geologists say that about 7700 years ago, Mount Mazama was a 12000 foot volcano sitting atop a pressure container of magma deep in the earth. (Note that the 7700 is accurate. That is like a week ago Thursday in geologic time.) There were also other volcanoes around it, all of them hot. When Mazama finally erupted and released all the stuff of volcanoes beneath it, there was nothing left below to support the mountain so it collapsed into itself creating the crater. Water from snow and rain gradually filled the crater over the thousands of years to a maximum depth of nearly 2000 feet. No streams flow in or out so no minerals or impurities get in. They say it is about the clearest and purest water on earth. The hues of blue are amazing too and I hope the pictures show that. We tend to use words like “amazing” and “incredible” a lot, I know, so please forgive the excess.

Being created by a volcano there are some strange phenomena around and in the lake. One is another volcano, Wizard Island. It is the big one in the pictures and you can tell it’s shaped like a volcano. Another one is the frozen lava shape that sticks above water level and looks like a ship from a distance. This is Phantom Ship. Still another strange thing, outside the lake crater in a canyon, are spires of volcanic stuff called Pinnacles. This truly is weird. These things are hard volcanic plumbing and stayed hidden under the earth long after the eruption. Gradually the softer materials of the volcanic ash and pumice were eroded away exposing them. You can see that they look like they are cooked.