Crater Lake National Park

August 24/25 and August 31/September/1, 2004

Crater Lake

I visited Crater Lake National Park twice on my trip - once on "the way out" and again on "the way back in". As I put it. Crater Lake is the one National Park located in the state of Oregon - a beautiful state by the way, I really did like it except for Portland but that is another story.

The Park itself is not large. As far as National Parks go, it actually seemed quite small to me. It was quite scenic, though, so in that regard it did qualify as a National Park. It gets its name from the lake located in the crater of an inactive volcano, Mount Mazama. I don't exactly remember the last time the volcano erupted but since then, its crater has filled in with a large amount of water. The water itself is blue, as water should be.

I stayed in spot E45 in the Mount Mazama campground both times. The campground has many (MANY!) spots and rarely gets full. E45 was in good proximity to a restroom and the showers weren't that far away either. There are also bears in the area but, as per my usual, I did not see any.

The first time through, it was chilly but clear when I went to sleep. I woke up to rain and had to pack up everything wet. Yuck! I had planned on driving the loop road around the lake, but a thick fog had rolled in with the rain and no seeing of the lake was to be had. So I left.

The return trip had much better weather. I arrived back at the Park at about 6pm from Mount St. Helens. It was sunny and warm, and I was able to view the Lake. Hooray! The pictures I have from the Park and the Lake are from this trip. Unfortunately, I was not able to back up far enough to get the entire Lake in one picture; all my pictures have portions of the Lake. No rain this trip either. Two for two.

But I was satisfied. I got to see the Lake. It would have been a bummer to have visited twice and not gotten to see it. I would have thought the planets were lining up against me or something like that.