We woke to smoke here… and smoke at home too!
The smokey haze was still hanging over the lake this morning when Neil checked his phone. A comment on Facebook from Owen had us scrambling to try to connect to the news websites, not so easy with our dodgy internet connection. At breakfast ( tasty eggs and bacon in the hotel restaurant) we managed to catch up with the political drama at home – the things that happen when you go away for a few weeks!
Anyway, back in the real world of Oregon… after breakfast we set off down the road to see the Pinnacles area of the park. In a river canyon the soft ash walls have eroded into a series of craggy “hoodoos” tall twisted spires that rise for the floor of the shallow canyon. We walked the short trail at the pinnacles and then set off for a more challenging trail on the crater rim.
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| The Pinnacles |
Watchman’s Peak is high on the rim of the crater and is the site of an old Wildfire watchtower. It’s a steep climb up a dusty trail but well worth it for the views once you reach the top. They’ve maintained the watchtower as a small museum with the old , huge, binoculars that were used back in the day to scan the nearby forest. These days it’s all done by satellite.
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| View from Watchman Peak – we walked up from the carpark |
At the base of the trail there were quite a crowd of people admiring the view and a similar crowd of little sqirrels scattering around in hopes picking up scraps of food from the onlookers. These little guys are Golden-mantled ground squirrels and they seem to have no fear whatsoever of people. They are absolutely everywhere in the park, scuttering across the trails.
Back at the Rim Village area we grabbed some coffee and a little sustenance after our energetic walk before setting off on another trail nearer to the lodge, the Garfield Peak trail. this one rises up a high ridge beside the lodge and provides great views back to the lodge and over the crater. The skies had been cloudy all day and the weather has turned much colder, we were well rugged up for our walk.
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| The Lodge on the rim of the crater |
We had only walked a little way when a small group of deer popped out of the forest and ran across the path in front of us. It was a very similar experience to our evening back at Bend, Neil thinks the deer are laying in wait for us! We didn’t attempt the whole climb, it’s described in the park guides as a strenuous walk and we were starting to feel very dusty so once we’d taken a few more photos we headed back down to the lodge.
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| Another wildlife encounter |
Back at the lodge we settled down for a bit of R & R before heading down to the restaurant for our final dinner, this time a very tasty Bison Meatloaf. Crater Lake has been a great ittle interlud but we’re back on the road tomorrow.