Crater Lake and Mt Hood

 

June 21 & 22

Our drive on the first day of summer from Cascade Locks to Crescent, OR was a pretty one.  As we drove south the land became very textured with different color and types of agriculture. 





Not only was that the look but in the background was Mt. Hood.  It loomed there almost all the way to Bend.

As we awoke this morning the temperature was 40 degrees but the high is going to hit 82 or so.  After our exercise we loaded up the car and headed to Crater Lake(Bucket list).  The drive was a very interesting one.  Getting to the park before the gate was open, we continued(we have America Beautiful passes) on into the park.  In the first couple miles snow was showing up in the woods but the more we drove the more it became very prevalent.




Sometimes the snow was higher than our car.  At our first viewing of the Lake, we were awed by its beauty by the deep blue lake with not a ripple on its surface.



  The surface was a mirror of the sky.  In fact, a jet contrail was overhead and it reflected more brilliantly than the actual version above.  We started to do a small trail that came to an abrupt end.

  Since there was so much snow the rim drive was less than half of the normal distance.  The good news was that the snow was melting at about an inch daily.  We didn’t have time to wait.  All of the pull offs were spectacular and offered varying degrees of views. 





Our drive around the rim took us to 7700’ in altitude.

Leaving the park, we decided to drive a little further down the road to see some of the falls and lakes along the drive.  There were some neat falls and a beautiful lake,





where we ate our lunch.

Popular posts from this blog

Columbia River Scenic Drive

Image
  June 19 Our visit to Columbia River Scenic Highway this morning was met with a great deal of fog.   The first stop was an overlook called Crown Point Vista House.   The only thing we saw was a silhouette of the building.   As we drove along the road the feeling was like we were in an enchanted forest.   We were nearly the only ones on the road for a while.   Our first falls to see was Latourell Falls. There was a nice little hike into it.   This drive takes us along this scenic road that was the first national scenic road developed about 1915.   There are nearly 14 falls along this road all seem to be very different from the other.   We skipped one of the falls since we plan to see it tomorrow.   Most all of the falls are just a short hike from the road and a lot can be seen easily from the road.  Other than the falls there were some pretty creeks and hikes to them. After a nice lunch at Cascade Locks at the foot of bridge ca...
Read more

Lake Tahoe ride around

Image
  July 1, 2022 Our day trip today is was to Lake Tahoe. I came here back in 1982 as a support person for my friend Wally Robinson.   Wally was here to run the Western States 100, from Squaw Valley to Auburn, CA through the Sierra Nevada’s.   I was amazed how good my memory was regarding the area.   Today, we drove to Truckee and then over to Squaw Valley to see where the start of the run was/is.   What amazes me is that he had to run in the first 4 miles 4000’ in elevation increase.   Not too surprising to me was that the mountain was still there and still horribly looming over the start line. From Squaw Valley we drove the perimeter of the lake stopping at a beach (not too many bikinis at 55 degrees) then on to the “Vikingsholm” and then on to Lower Eagle Falls.   Both of these locations were within the Emerald Bay State Park. This was quite a walk for us, only 1 mile, but the elevation change was 500’.   We didn’t know if the altitude of 65...
Read more
Image
  June 30, 2022 We began our trip today by driving down the Sacramento Valley through orchards of walnuts, almonds, olives and oranges.   Mile after mile of orchards.   We then turned east and climbing into the Sierra Nevada mountains.   The first part of the trip after the valley was through farmland and then we began our climb.   Traffic was really heavy on this backroad and there was construction that helped to slow us down even more.   Even when we got to I-80 traffic was heavy.   Thank goodness for 3 uphill lanes when climbing these big “hills”.   Forty-five to fifty miles per hour was the best that we could maintain as we climbed.   At the top we went trough Donner Summit.   There was a pretty rest area showing a lot of the beauty of the Sierras.   Our goal today was Verdi, NV a small community on the border of Nevada and California.   In fact, part of our campground is in California and the office and adjoining casino...
Read more