Crater Lake National Park

We arrived in the late afternoon, and this was our first peek into the crater…

… as we were greeted by this cheeky fellow -

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel (that’s a pine nut he’s eating, not a handout from a person)

The clouds you saw in the first picture cleared quickly, so we headed to Watchman Overlook for sunset. Apparently this spot is overrun by people in the summer, but since we were there on the evening of Labor Day, the parking lot wasn’t even full. The “golden hour” light was pretty nice across the lake…

… but this was even better -

We actually stayed until “astronomical twilight” so I might capture the Milky Way over the lake. It was really cold and windy, and we were the only ones there. The Milky Way stretched from one horizon to the other over the lake, but alas, I couldn’t get my new camera to take a picture, so it’ll just have to be a neat memory for us.

An interesting side note - do you see the pole extending way beyond the car in the picture above? I think they get a LOT of snow up here! (our car’s roof is at a height of over 5 ft)

The next morning we drove the Rim Road, stopping at all the overlooks and pullouts. Above, you can see the little island that has been dubbed “The Phantom Ship”.

The reflections in the still morning water were just stunning…

… but this reflection on a reflection was mind-blowing -

As I’ve written in the past, I do NOT enhance my pictures whatsoever. The water was really that blue. It is the deepest lake in the US at 1,949 ft. No rivers flow into or out of it, and any evaporation loss is replaced by rain and snowmelt.

Crater Lake was formed 7,700 yrs ago when the Mount Mazama volcano collapsed in on itself. There are several cinder cones on the floor of the caldera, but only Wizard Island rises above the lake level.

We hiked the Garfield Peak trail, and can highly recommend this for almost anyone. The total ascent is 1,074 ft, but it is actually fairly gradual, and the total hike is only 3.4 miles out and back. The views were spectacular…

… to be able to see the entire lake -

The whole time we were hiking, and at every overlook spot, I couldn’t stop saying,” Wow, it’s so blue!”

We had a buddy up at the top -

(there were tons of Golden-mantled ground squirrels all around)

And for those of you who’ve always wondered what ~1,000 ft of elevation difference looks like -

If you enlarge the picture above, you’ll see Crater Lake Lodge at the left edge of the lake, and it sits at about 7,000 ft elevation, while we were at ~8,000 ft. on top of Garfield Peak. The bang for the buck (energy expenditure) on this hike is fantastic!

Seeing the “crater” of Wizard Island was pretty interesting -

Enough blue! Time for a sunset ending -