For once, we were almost on time. We left the campsite after some quick maintenance
for the RV (dump and fill) and some ice.
We headed straight to the visitor center for passport stamps, postcards,
and a bumper sticker. After that it was
back to the rear of the RV for me while Greg handled the harrowing drive back
around the crater. I had the National
Park newsletter and kept him busy and distracted by reading the history of the
road around the lake. They are
celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the first road that was built.
We managed to miss the sign for the trail down to the lake
and had to go back a few miles after we realized it. That ate up any extra time and we had to keep
up a good pace on the trail down to the lake.
We made it with 5 minutes to spare and went straight to the boat.
The boat is an open top tour boat that apparently they had
to air lift into the Crater back in 2003.
They have 3 boats giving 2 hour tours.
It is definitely they way to see the lake! You are so far above the lake from the road
but when you are down at lake level, it is a totally different experience. The water is so blue, it’s apparently one of
the most pristine lakes in the world. It’s
not fed by any rivers or streams. The
water comes purely from rain and snow melt.
There are fish in the lake but they were introduced by humans and
eventually they would like to remove them all. To all my fishing friends, you
don’t need a permit and there is no catch limit! To all my CBF friends, they have tested water
clarity to over 200 feet!
There is an island called Wizard Island that has a volcano
on it. A volcano within a volcano! You can do a tour of the island and if we
ever get back we’ll definitely do that.
You can actually walk down into the crater, which would be so cool. We had to settle for just going around it
since we didn’t have the time this trip.
There are some very cool rock features and waterfalls along the lake. It was a great tour, even though it was a bit
cold when we picked up speed crossing the lake.
After the tour, we took a minute to give the water a quick
feel. You are allowed to swim and the
temperature wasn’t that bad but the air temperature wasn’t warm enough to make
a swim sound appealing. There are only 2
months a year they don’t get snow, July and August. Apparently there is usually more snow cover
on the mountains but last year they only got 29 feet as opposed to their normal
45 feet of snow.
We had to hike the one mile back up to the edge of the crater
and it was a tough climb. There are 9 switch backs on the way up. Luckily it wasn’t too hot so that made the
climb a bit easier. Still, it was much
harder than going down! We decided to drive the rest of Rim Drive, stopping to
take pictures along the way. There was a waterfall right off the road that
Greg, Kellen and I climbed to get some great pictures. Once we finished the ride around the crater
it was time to head down to one of my favorite spots on earth, the Redwoods.
I have to come up with a more creative comment, but for goodness sake, everything is just beautiful. It does look darned cold, though. On the one photo (just above the four of you in the boat), please tell me that was not the view from within the RV on the road! I would rather believe that you walked over to the very edge to take that picture.
ReplyDeleteThat picture was taken from an "overlook", which didn't have a railing so it would be really easy to fall down the mountain. The road, in sections, only had about 1" of shoulder beyond the white line, and then cliff. Kristin moved to the back seat - she couldn't watch from the front.
ReplyDeleteIt was cold on the lake when the boat was moving and the clouds were out. Standing still in the sun it was warm.