9/13 - 9/17 Crater Lake is an amazing National Park. The lake defines the color blue with so many amazing view points on the 33 mile road around the lake. At 6,700 feet the weather during the day warmed up to mid 60's most days and in 30's to low 40's at night, chilly! Wildfire smoke wasn't much of a problem, but the afternoons did tend to get smoky. This morning 9/17 when we pulled out you couldn't see across the lake due to the wildfire smoke.

Just some Crater Lake stats:

• The Lake is 4 miles wide and 6 miles long
•  It is the deepest lake in the US at 1,948 feet deep, 3rd deepest in the world
• Formed by a Mt Mazama volcano dome which collapsed 7,700 years ago after erupting
• Average annual snowfall 43 feet. (Weather forecast for Saturday 9/18/21 is snow)
• 4.6 trillion gallons of water in the lake. 30 million gallons of water evaporate/seepage annually and equally replaced by snow and rain. The level of the lake does not fluctuate in any significant amount.
• It took about 250 years to fill the lake

(CLICK ON THE PICS TO GET A FULL SCREEN VIEW)

Here are the pics from the 4 days at Crater Lake 

9/13 We turned East for the first time on our trip to start to head home! 

First day in Crater Lake

Great camping spot at the NP

Crater Lake Lodge. Only Lodge guess were allowed inside. Bummer!

9/14 

Another picture perfect day!

In the fog this 16 story volcanic rock formation looks like a ship emerging from the fog

Of course we got some hiking in. This was a short 1 mile hike to pinnacles created by steam escaping from the volcano vents forming a chimney like vertical shaft as the ash from the volcano fell. In this area the ash layers were worn away over the last 7,700 years leaving the harden pinnacle.

Wizard Island 764 foot tall volcano in the Mazama caldera which has risen over the centuries and continues to do so today. Note the cone depression in the center. 

Castle Rock formation (orange colored rock)

9/15

Plaikni Falls 2 mile around trip hike.

Wildfire smoke moving into the area.

Coulin Pine cone covered with sap

Bark on the Spruce is about 1.5 inches thick to protect against forest fire.

Huge Spruce tree which was hollowed out like a hot tub

9/16

One mile hike down to the surface of the lake with a 700 foot elevation change complete with multiple switchbacks. The views from the bottom of the trail gave a completely different view.

View from the start of the trail

Hike down

Water in the lake is the purest water in the world. No stream enters the lake, just snow and rainfall

I took my fishing rod on the hike and both Mark and I caught a rainbow trout .... minow about 6 inches long.

One mile hike back up.

View from the top.

Sunset

9/17

Left Crater Lake behind on our way to take the Gardners to the Boise airport on Sunday. We made a couple of stops in the painted high desert as well as fossils beds in John Day NP.

View from the road through the mountain range.