Crater Lake

The first day of our trip was hastily planned at the last minute when I found out that I would have to leave the house earlier than expected. We drove down to Bend, which only took a few hours, and had a nice time browsing some shops there before having dinner at the Deschutes Brewery Pub and watching the Barca match. We camped at the nearby Lapine state park. A pretty relaxing start to the trip.

The following morning we woke up pretty early and set off for the first of our big destination of the trip: Crater Lake. Crater Lake is Oregon's only National Park. It is the deepest lake in the United States at a depth of a little over 2,000 feet. It was formed in the caldera created by the massive explosion of Mt. Mazama around 7,700 years ago. Over those years the crater slowly filled with water and left us with this gorgeous blue lake.

The approach to Crater Lake is nothing to write home about. There are areas of pumice desert, but nothing spectacular. The makes it all the more amazing when you reach the top of the ridge and this enormous, magnificent lake stretches out before you. It was absolutely stunning.



The road runs along the ridge all the way around the lake. We came in at the north entrance and drove down to the south, where the visitor center in located. The drive was gorgeous. The road was flanked on one side by tall trees and the last remnants of what must have been enormous snowbanks, on the other by the vast expanse of brilliant blue water. It is an amazing sight even if, like us, you only have a few hours.

The picture above is of Wizard's Isle, an island formed by volcanic activity that occurred after the initial eruption of Mt. Mazama. There is a boat trip that takes you out to the island, where you are free to stay and hike before picking up the next ferry back, but it costs $40 per person, so it was a bit out of our price range.


This picture is a depiction of a Native American legend regarding a giant crayfish that would pick unwary travelers from the rim of the crater.

The above picture is of Phantom Ship, a small island also formed by volcanic activity after the initial eruption. I didn't really see it, but they say that when there are strong winds on the lake, the island looks like a ghost ship breaking through the waves.

As I said before, we only had a few hours to spend at Crater Lake. Our final destination for the evening was a campground in Northern California on Shasta Lake, a few hours away.

We stopped for provisions at a local market and discovered this incredible product: Blanco Basura. For those of you that don't speak Spanish, this is bad Spanish for "White Trash." It is a box containing 5 beers and 5 shots (200 ml) of whiskey or tequila. We picked one up expecting terrible things to come of a $7 product containing un-branded whiskey and beer.


We were pleasantly surprised. Upon closer inspection, the beer was produced by Tecate, and wasn't bad. It was a bland Mexican lager, but it didn't taste bad. And the whiskey was actually pretty good. Much smoother than the bottle of Evans Williams we picked up later in the trip.

I don't think they can sell these in Virginia, what with all liquor being sold through the ABC stores, but I'm thinking of starting a petition.