July 9 - Bandon to Crater Lake National Park, OR
After more frustrating calls to the Mazama Lodge at Crater Lake, we finally managed to make reservations. This turned out to be a disappointing accommodation with poor facilities and poorer staff. (They actively avoided acknowledging people trying to check in or check out! I guess when you have a monopoly on places to stay...)
We drove inland from Bandon, and entered Crater Lake National Park via its north entrance. The lake is indeed a large crater, created about 7700 years ago when the volcano Mt. Mazama erupted. Over time, the crater filled with water from spring melt and rain, and has now reached an equilibrium.
The north entrance to the park takes one first through the Pumice Desert. This desolate field has small scrubby plants, but from a distance looks like a dry plain. We were surprised how colourful pumice rock is - all shades of pink and brown. I'd assumed that volcanic rock was all black.
Rim Drive is a 33-mile road circling the entire lake, and our motel was in the south end of the drive. So we took the recommeded clock-wise route, pulling over at the very first viewpoint. The parking lot is downslope from the lakeview, so anticipation was certainly building! We were not disappointed in the least. Even though it was overcast, and drizzling on and off, the lake's legendary blue-ness lived up to reputation! As we meandered around the lake, getting views from the steep caldera, we gained an appreciation for the varied textures along the rim. I'm not sure how many people spend as much time as we do at these kinds of things, but I suspect most visitors don't bother to stop at EVERY pull-off to take photos of the lake and admire the new angle!
Wildlife here is similar to that of the Canadian Rockies (with which we are more familiar), only smaller and less aggressive! The Clark's nutcracker (aka the Camp Robber) hopped around a nearby tree, unlike the Rockies Robbers, which would steal food from your hand if you turned your head! The golden-mantled ground squirrels were also much smaller than the Rockies variety, but equally cute to observe! Over the 1.5 days we were in the park, we also saw several yellow-bellied marmots, black-tailed (?) deer (with two fawns!) and elk.
We drove inland from Bandon, and entered Crater Lake National Park via its north entrance. The lake is indeed a large crater, created about 7700 years ago when the volcano Mt. Mazama erupted. Over time, the crater filled with water from spring melt and rain, and has now reached an equilibrium.
The north entrance to the park takes one first through the Pumice Desert. This desolate field has small scrubby plants, but from a distance looks like a dry plain. We were surprised how colourful pumice rock is - all shades of pink and brown. I'd assumed that volcanic rock was all black.
Rim Drive is a 33-mile road circling the entire lake, and our motel was in the south end of the drive. So we took the recommeded clock-wise route, pulling over at the very first viewpoint. The parking lot is downslope from the lakeview, so anticipation was certainly building! We were not disappointed in the least. Even though it was overcast, and drizzling on and off, the lake's legendary blue-ness lived up to reputation! As we meandered around the lake, getting views from the steep caldera, we gained an appreciation for the varied textures along the rim. I'm not sure how many people spend as much time as we do at these kinds of things, but I suspect most visitors don't bother to stop at EVERY pull-off to take photos of the lake and admire the new angle!
Wildlife here is similar to that of the Canadian Rockies (with which we are more familiar), only smaller and less aggressive! The Clark's nutcracker (aka the Camp Robber) hopped around a nearby tree, unlike the Rockies Robbers, which would steal food from your hand if you turned your head! The golden-mantled ground squirrels were also much smaller than the Rockies variety, but equally cute to observe! Over the 1.5 days we were in the park, we also saw several yellow-bellied marmots, black-tailed (?) deer (with two fawns!) and elk.
posted by blumaroo at 10:18 PM
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