We woke at 6:30am and had breakfast, packed the car and were on the road by 7:30am.
Today we are going to visit Crater Lake National Park but we have to make one stop first. We want to see Oregon’s longest covered bridge.
After leaving the bridge, we entered the park at the North Entrance and showed our National Park Pass which lets us into any US National Park for 1 year.
Crater Lake was once a large mountain that erupted and when the magma chamber underneath was depleted, the mountain collapsed leaving the crater. Rain and snow melt gradually filled the crater over thousands of years. The lake is 1943 feet deep, making it the deepest lake in the USA.
We are going to drive completely around the lake on Rim Road. This photo is our first view of the lake.
The lake is about 5 miles across and I took this panoramic shot to give a better perspective of the whole lake.
Karen and I at Crater Lake NP.
There are two islands in the lake… this is Wizard Island. Named so because it is shaped like a wizards hat.
The water is an amazing blue as shown in this shot with the trees and sky reflecting in the water.
Another panoramic shot of Crater Lake.
More blue water.
The rock cliffs are covered with a green lichen.
We saw some beautiful flowers along the side of the road.
And of course at this altitude, we are between 6000 and 7000 ft, we find some snow.
The other island in the lake is Phantom Ship Island. If it was misty, this would really look like a phantom ship.
We took a short 7 mile side trip away from the rim road and visited The Pinnacles. We have never seen anything quite like this. They look like giant sand castles. These pinnacles, although it is hard to photograph them in perspective, range in size from 100 ft to 3oo ft tall.
That completed our drive around the rim of Crater Lake and we headed towards our hotel. After dinner we topped off the evening by stopping at Baskin Robbins and enjoying a chocolate fudge ice cream in a chocolate waffle cone, dipped in chocolate.
To see all of our photos from today, you can click on this link to my FLICKR site.
Tomorrow we will leave Oregon behind us and enter into California.
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