Category Archives: National Park or Forest

National Park or Forest

September 18, 2014 Yosemite National Park Part 2

On our next visit to the park we decided to drive to Glacier Point. As I said before, it is quite a drive to get anywhere in the park and this was two hour drive each way from the campground, but well worth the effort. Glacier Point gives a panoramic view of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome. There is a paved walkway which takes you to various lookout points with views 3,214 feet down into the valley. It was really neat to look at the park from above and see the roads we had traveled and bridges we had crossed.

A viewpoint at Glacier Point

Half Dome as viewed from the Glacier Point viewpoint

The valley below Half Dome

The Yosemite Valley as viewed from Glacier Point

Half Dome

Half Dome is 8,842 FT

Beautiful Half Dome

Zoomed view of Half Dome with several people that hiked to the top

Zoomed view of North Dome and Basket Dome

Yosemite National Park is known for its waterfalls, and we had been warned in other blogs that the waterfalls in the park were dried up due to the severe drought as well as late summer heat.

In the spring Yosemite Falls runs off the mountainside

Nevada Falls in upper right and Vernal Falls in lower left

317 FT Vernal Falls blowing in the wind. Those are people in the pool below.

594 FT Nevada Falls

The best time to see the waterfalls is late spring/early summer, and we hope to someday return earlier in the year to Yosemite. From our viewpoint at Glacier Point we were surprised and delighted to see two waterfalls far in the distance; Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls, with a little water still flowing.

While in Yosemite we were saddened to hear of the devastating wildfire which swept through the town of Weed, California. You may recall this sweet little town was our home base for 4 days over Labor Day while we visited Mount Shasta. This town was where we found the geocache on the totem pole at the beginning of the Alaskan Highway, and also near the metal sculpture garden memorial to those who served our country. From the news reports the fire was very devastating and the town will have a long road to recovery. Also during our stay in Yosemite we heard of wildfires near Lake Tahoe which we had visited just a week before. One of the campers in our campground in Yosemite told us they had just left Lake Tahoe and had to drive a different route out because some of the roads were closed. We also closely followed reports of wildfires on our current projected route out of Yosemite to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park.

We hope that this video link below made from Glacier Point will be easy for you to view.

http://youtu.be/98ZIpWStoVk

September 16, 2014 Yosemite National Park Part 1

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We had two main goals for our summer travels. One was Glacier National Park in Montana and the other was Yosemite National Park in California. Bill in particular had been wanting to visit Yosemite for some time. Just as wildfires in the northern Cascades altered our route to Glacier,

We finally made it to the world famous Yosemite NP

we followed closely and somewhat anxiously the wildfires near Yosemite. A couple weeks before our scheduled arrival, we read news reports that hikers had been evacuated from an area in Yosemite. We checked the latest reports on the Yosemite website and proceeded with our travels. Little did we know the stressful trip to follow.

We decided It was best not to take the route which would have taken us through all the traffic in South Tahoe, especially since the road is hilly and they were having a big bike race on our travel day. We took Highway 88 toward the Nevada/California border. After passing into California we had to cross Carson Pass with an elevation of 8,573 feet. With a grade of 8% for twenty miles, our brakes overheated twice and we had to stop to let them cool. As if that wasn’t enough, we still had to make the climb into Yosemite. We had been warned about New Priest Grade Road to Yosemite from a fellow RV blogger, so when we reached the foot of the mountain we unhooked the car and I drove the car to help minimize the pull on the RV. There was a sign warning drivers to turn off their air conditioning to avoid overheating, and there was a place you could stop and get water for your radiator if needed. We began the steady six mile climb up the steep winding road with a grade of 6% to 7% and a hundred curves some of which were hairpin curves. I am sure the scenery was fabulous, but with constant curves and no guardrails, our hands gripped the steering wheels and our eyes never left the road. When we reached the top we felt both a sense of relief and victory. We had conquered the road from hell!

After driving an additional twenty miles we finally arrived at our campground which was conveniently located five miles from the west entrance to Yosemite National Park. Over seven hours after leaving Carson City, we arrived at our campsite as the sun began to set.

After our stressful travel day, we decided to rest the next day. We did drive the five miles to the visitors center at the entrance to the park to get a map and some information so we could plan our next several days.

Our first day into the park we decided to drive to the Yosemite Valley Visitors Center. At 747,956 acres, Yosemite is huge, and since 94% of the park is protected wilderness, most of it is never seen except by back country hikers. There are some roads you can drive in the park, but it takes quite a bit of driving to get anywhere. The park does offer a free shuttle bus which takes you to various places in the park, but we preferred the flexibility of using our own car which was a luxury since gasoline in the park was $4.79 a gallon. It was a 23 mile drive each way to Yosemite Valley, but the views were well worth it. We were surprised at how much traffic there was even after Labor Day, and we could imagine how crowded it must be in the summer. There were many turnouts to stop and take pictures, including massive cliff faces such as El Capitan and Half Dome, two of the most popular icons in the park. El Capitan is a massive granite monolith that stands 3,593 from base

7,569 FT El Capitan has a 3,000 vertical face

to summit. Half Dome is Yosemite’s most distinctive monument. It was shaped by forces uplifting as well as erosion from rivers and glaciers. While it appears to be a dome that was

Upper Yosemite Falls is dry in SEPT

The Iconic “Half Dome”

broken off to leave a half dome shape, scientists now think the half dome is the original shape.

We stopped at Swinging Bridge to have lunch. We couldn’t figure out why it was called swinging bridge since the bridge didn’t swing, but could only guess that the swinging bridge washed away and was replaced by this more permanent bridge. We tried to have lunch at a nearby picnic area but the bees swarmed over the food to the point we were afraid we would swallow a bee so we had to retreat to the car to finish eating.

Swing Bridge doesn’t swing anymore

Diane in the Yosemite valley

Bill in Yosemite valley

A parked deer

We arrived at the parking area for the Yosemite Valley Visitors Center which was crowded with cars and people. There is actually a half mile walk from the parking lot to Yosemite Village where the visitors center is located. This is truly a busy little village for tourists with the visitors center, gift shops, a nature center, art gallery, museum, theater, Indian Culture exhibit, Wilderness Center, a market, restaurant and post office. We have found that the national parks have excellent movies on the parks, and we watched two outstanding movies on Yosemite Park at the visitors center.

The idea of establishing a national park first began with Yosemite. A man named Galen Clark was disturbed by the logging he witnessed in the park and lobbied to protect Yosemite Valley from development. This led President Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, to take time to sign the Yosemite Grant in 1864 to protect the land. Yosemite became the nation’s third National Park in 1890. We have been hearing a lot about naturalist John Muir since we first visited the Redwoods several months ago. Muir had a major influence on enlarging Yosemite, including a three day camping trip in the park with President Theodore Roosevelt. John Muir said of Yosemite, “It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter”. During their camping trip which included weather so cold they bedded down with forty wool blankets and awoke to five inches of new snow on the already five feet of snow already on the ground, Muir showed Roosevelt the beauty of the park and convinced him of the need for further conservation. Roosevelt signed the Yosemite Recession Bill in 1906 which expanded the park boundaries. During his presidency Theodore Roosevelt signed into existence five national parks, eighteen national monuments, fifty-five national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and one hundred and fifty national forests. President Roosevelt said, “There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias….our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their Children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred”.

September 8, 2014 Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada

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Carson City, the capital of Nevada, was our home base during our visit to Lake Tahoe. We settled into a small no frills but very comfortable campground. The owner was very nice and accommodating and we knew right off we had made the right decision to stay in Carson City which is about a twenty minute drive from Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe is very pretty and South Tahoe is very much a resort area with casinos, hotels, restaurants, plenty of souvenir shops, and a lot of traffic. We looked hard for a campground that could accommodate the size of our RV and was away from traffic noise. Not being able to find anything that worked for us in Tahoe, we decided on Carson City.

A nice view on the pass from Carson City to South Lake Tahoe

We drove from Carson City to Lake Tahoe twice. The first day we purchased an audio tour to use as we drove the seventy-two mile loop around the lake. It gave us the history of the lake as well as some fascinating stories about some of its inhabitants over the years. Lake Tahoe is basically made up of five distinct sections; South Shore which is the most touristy area, West Shore with private homes, Truckee River & Squaw Valley with its famous ski resort, North Shore with Tahoe City, and East Shore. The traffic in South Tahoe was almost bumper to bumper and since this is off season, we could only imagine how bad it must be during the summer and busy ski season.

Lake Tahoe, named “Big Water” by the Washoe Indians, has enough water to cover the entire state of California with fourteen inches of water. The water in Lake Tahoe is said to be 97% pure, almost the same as distilled water. It is twenty-two miles long and twelve miles wide, with one third of the lake in Nevada and two thirds in California. It is the third deepest lake in North America with an average depth of 989 feet. It is fed by sixty-three streams and two hot springs.

Kayakers enjoying Lake Tahoe

Kayakers enjoying Emerald Bay

Lake Tahoe’s water is very clear

Lake Tahoe sits at an elevation of 6,229 feet in a valley between Sierra Nevada and the Carson Range. The mountains surrounding Lake Tahoe are usually snow capped, but we did not see any snow since we were arriving in late summer. The lakeshore gets an average of 125 inches of snow with the surrounding mountains getting an average of 300-500 inches. The lake is also surrounded by three national forests; the Eldorado, the Humboldt-Tolyabe, and Tahoe. Since 25 percent of the lake is privately owned the lake was never able to become a National Park.

On our second visit to Lake Tahoe we took a narrated boat tour of the lake aboard the MS Dixie II paddlewheel boat.

Having a party on Lake Tahoe

It was a leisurely trip out to Emerald Bay which is one of the most photographed places in the world. Once we reached Emerald Bay

The famous Emerald Bay and Fannette Island

the boat entered the bay and circled around Fannette Island, the only island on Lake Tahoe.

Fannette Island

Fannette Island with Mrs. Knight’s Tea House at the top

Fannette Island

We were also able to get a great view of a castle named Vikingsholm. It was built in 1929 as a summer home, and the owner and her guests would often be rowed over to the Tea House on the island for Sunday tea. The castle is said to be one of the finest examples of Scandinavian architecture in the United States. Today it is maintained by the California State Parks Foundation.

Vikingsholm is now a California State Park

Vikingsholm is located at the head of Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe, California

We loved seeing the beautiful Ponderosa pines along the lakeshore. Back in the late 1800’s miners were lured to the area with the promise of gold and the discovery of the Comstock Lode (the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States). As a result almost all the pines around the lake were cut down to support the mining industry needs in nearby Virginia City. Most of the Ponderosa pines we see today are second generation plantings.

Castle Rock with highway tunnels

Kayakers enjoying Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is beautiful but it doesn’t begin to compare to the majestic, breathtaking beauty of Crater Lake.

Some Lake Tahoe tidbits:

Lake Tahoe was originally called “Dao w a ga” by the Washoe tribe. First pioneers mispronounced it as “Da ow” and the name was eventually changed to Tahoe because it was deemed easier to say.
Mark Twain loved Lake Tahoe calling it “the fairest picture the whole earth affords”.
The 1960 Winter Olympic games were held in Squaw Valley. It was the first games to be televised and the first time the U.S. won a gold medal in ice hockey.
The Ponderosa house, used in the TV show, “Bonanza”, was moved when the show ended to the area and until recently was open for tours until it was sold.
If Lake Tahoe was drained, it would take 700 years for it to refill naturally.
The evaporated water from Lake Tahoe each day, could supply the daily water needs of the city of Los Angeles for five years.
Tahoe Tessie is a prehistoric fish which legend says lives in the lake.
Jacques Cousteau made a deep water dive in the mid 1970’s and when he came up he refused to share any of his underwater photos. He said, “The world isn’t ready for what was down there”, and never spoke of it again. Some speculate he came across someone in “cement shoes” since the Mafia loved Lake Tahoe, while others guess he saw Tahoe Tessie.
Speaking of the Mafia, the movie “Godfather II” was filmed at Lake Tahoe, as well as “The Bodyguard” with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. Also filmed in Tahoe was “City of Angels” with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan.

September 4, 2014 Lassen Volcanic National Park, California Part 2

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We could have easily stayed longer in this park since there were so many things to see and do, but we had scheduled only three nights and needed to get on to our next reservation. We only had time for one hike and we chose one of the most popular hikes in the park, Bumpass Hell Trail. This hike is only three miles round trip which sounds easy, but it is at an elevation of 8,400 feet and over rocky terrain. The last quarter mile there is a drop of 100 feet into a hydrothermal basin, which meant a steep 100 foot climb back out.

The day was beautiful with not a cloud in the sky and we arrived at the trailhead parking area early to avoid heat and crowds. From the parking lot we saw a huge balanced boulder. When

A balancing rock near the trailhead

glacier ice filled this area 10,000 years ago it carried vast quantities of rock down into the valley. When the ice melted, rocks such as this were left behind.

The trail was narrow with a gradual climb and though rocky in places, was a fairly easy hike. From the trail we had a great view of Lassen Peak.

Bumpass Hell trail

Lassen Peak from the Bumpass Hell trail

As we reached the area where the trail drops steeply into the hydrothermal basin we could hear the steam escaping from the vents. From a distance the sound reminded us of semi trucks. In the basin there were boardwalks constructed to walk on and view the activity. There were signs warning people to stay on the boardwalk since visitors who had ventured off the boardwalks for a closer view had been badly burned. The park newsletter also warned of the dangers of being severely burned in the hydrothermal areas of the park.

View from the top of the trail before descending into the basin.

The hydrothermal basin is 16 acres of boiling pools, fumaroles, and mud pots. This vent area is part of the 240,000 year old lava dome of Bumpass Mountain. The highest recorded temperature here was 322 degrees! And just like Sulphur Works, there was a strong smell of sulphur.

On the right is Big Boiler the hottest fumarole in the world; steam measured as high as 322 F.

It took us about an hour to walk along the boardwalks and see all there was to see in this fascinating hydrothermal basin. We climbed the steep trail out and once we reached the top the rest of the way to the car seemed easy. We were glad when we made it back to the car since the day was heating up and it was time for lunch and some ice cold drinks from the cooler. We were proud that we had made the hike at this elevation, the highest altitude hike either of us had ever done!

What a fascinating park Lassen Volcanic National Park turned out to be!

September 2, 2014 Lassen Volcanic National Park, California Part 1

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While we were in Weed we stopped off at their Visitors Center and the lady there suggested we stop by McCloud River Falls on our way to Lassen Volcanic National Park. I was a little apprehensive about finding a parking place long enough for the RV and our tow vehicle at the falls, but Bill was confident we wouldn’t have a problem and he was right. Since it was a weekday and after Labor Day, the parking lot was almost empty. We walked down to the observation decks at both the upper and middle falls. It was a lovely falls as the water tumbled over lava cliffs, and we could imagine it being even more spectacular after the spring thaw.

McCloud River upper falls

McCloud river middle falls

Sadly as we traveled down toward the park we entered an area devastated by fire with burned hillsides and forest. We passed a couple trucks burned to the shell as well as some destroyed buildings, but we also saw where many houses had miraculously escaped fire.

We arrived at Manzanita Lake Campground in Lassen Volcanic National Park for a three night dry camping stay. Lassen is known for mountain scenery reminiscent of Yosemite and geothermal features similar to Yellowstone, but the best thing is this park has only a fraction of the visitors of Yosemite or Yellowstone. As expected after Labor Day, the campground was sparsely inhabited which was just fine with us. There were loads of firewood to gather and unlike most state parks who want to sell you firewood, here they did not mind us gathering wood for a campfire. We enjoyed nice campfires under the stars on two nights, but we were mindful of the extremely dry conditions in the area and were super careful.

Lassen Volcanic National Park was designated a national park in 1916. All four types of volcanoes are found in the park (shield, plug dome, cinder cone, and composite) as well as three different types of geothermal features (steam vents, mudpots and hot springs). Lassen Peak, one of the world’s largest plug dome volcanoes, erupted in 1914 and continued volcanic outbursts for three years.

We stopped by the Visitors Center and watched an excellent movie about the park and the volcanic activity which shaped the landscape. We purchased an auto tour book so we could learn more about the area as we made the thirty mile drive from south to north through the park. There were sixteen pullouts where we could view and learn about that area of the park.

Hot Rock, was swept from the summit of Lassen Peak in 1915 by an avalanche and mudflow after an enormous steam explosion on the summit. It weighs about thirty tons, the weight of a fully loaded semi truck.

30-ton rock placed here during the eruption, five miles from the peak

Near Lassen Peak, the road reached 8,511 feet, making it the highest road in the Cascade Mountain range.

Lassen Peak

Lake Helen

Do you see a face?

Juniper Lake

Near the south entrance of the park we came to Sulphur Works, the most accessible hydrothermal area in the park. The steam fumaroles and mudpots are evidence of the continued volcanic activity in the area. Spring snowmelt and rain soaks into the ground and then percolates downward through cracks and fractures. Eventually it comes in contact with hot rock and trapped gases. The water is superheated and rises to the surface as steam. The hydrogen sulfide gives the area a very strong smell of rotten eggs and the temperatures in the pools have been measured at 196 degrees.

Sulphur Works

We also managed to find four geocaches in the park also!

August 29, 2014 Weed, California

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We spent a relaxing four days at Collier Memorial State Park near Chiloquin, Oregon. We had been without internet or good cell phone service for over a week so we spent lots of time working on blog posts, doing paperwork and planning our fall and winter itinerary. It takes time to research places to stay and make reservations. Now that summer is over the parks will not be as crowded, but there is always the holidays to plan for, and the earlier the better. There are many snowbirds that come down from Canada and snap up spots in the nicer RV resorts.

Our second day at Collier we began to notice smoke in the air from four surrounding Oregon wildfires. Even though the fires were not that close, we could definitely smell the smoke. The smoke continued to worsen during our stay and when we left on August 29th for Weed, California, there was hazy smoke in the air.

We had a wonderful time in Washington and Oregon and the time passed by so quickly. Today we entered California again. We passed through farmland with cattle grazing and the beginning of irrigation and crops growing in the fields. We made a stop in Klamath Falls, Oregon at a Walmart to stock up on supplies and food. We wanted to take advantage of this last Walmart in Oregon since Oregon has no sales tax.

As we crossed the border into California we had to stop at an agricultural checkpoint where we were asked where we were coming from and if we had any fruits or plants. Bill told them we had just bought a bag of apples at Walmart in Oregon and they told us we could go. We thought as we traveled further south the smoke would begin to dissipate, but if anything it got worse. For most of our two hour trip the visibility was only about two miles.

We checked into a small, no frills campground in Weed, California (population 2,900), for a four night stay during the Labor Day holiday. Weed is a little spot in the road but we wanted to stay away from the craziness of crowded state and national parks during the final summer holiday.

We ventured out to Main Street to visit the post office. We did a little geocaching and it is always amazing to find some unexpected sites in these small towns! We came across this Alaskan totem pole where a geocache was located. Turns out this totem pole is at the beginning of Highway 97 which is the beginning of the Alaskan-Canadian Highway. If you stayed on Highway 97 you would eventually pass through Canada into Alaska. There is another totem pole at the end of the highway in Alaska.

Another wonderful find while geocaching was the “Living Memorial Sculpture Garden” located about fifteen miles from our campground on Highway 97. This garden, located with a view of Mt Shasta in the distance, was founded in 1988 by a group of Siskiyou County veterans to celebrate veterans of conflicts from the Revolutionary to the present. Dennis Smith, a Vietnam veteran, is a metal sculptor whose works are displayed in the garden. There is also a Memorial Wall and every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, new names are etched on the wall and read aloud. At the entrance to the area is “The Peaceful Warrior”, a lone figure with one arm raised, representing those who love peace and will fight aggression to preserve that peace. This sculpture honors those willing to step forward when asked to do so. There are nine other sculptures in the park where we walked through a labyrinth to see them. We took pictures of some of our favorites to share in the blog. “Those Left Behind” is a female figure accepting the American flag.

Those left behind

“Who can repay those who have lost loved ones in combat? What on earth can compensate them for the loss of life?” “The Greatest Generation” sculpture depicts the second raising of the flag on Mt Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on February 23, 1945. “The Nurses” sculpture honors nurses, Navy corpsmen, Army medics, doctors and pharmacists who bring healing. “The POW-MIA” sculpture was the most moving, showing a soldier in a cage. Outside the cage is a metal arch where over the years people have left POW and MIA bracelets, wreaths, flags, flowers and personal notes.

Our main reason for stopping in Weed was to see Mount Shasta, the largest composite volcano in the Cascades and the second highest peak in the Cascades, with only Mt Rainier being higher. When we arrived in Weed, Mount Shasta was nowhere in site due to the smoke and haze from the wildfires. We hoped the visibility would improve during the four days we were there and on the day before we left the smoke cleared enough for us to get some fairly good pictures.

North face of MT Shasta and MT Shastina

South face of MT Shastina and MT Shasta

We drove the fourteen mile Mount Shasta Scenic Mountain Drive which took us halfway up the mountain to an altitude of 7,900 feet. Many mountains are considered to be sacred places, especially to Native Americans, but we found Mount Shasta to be considered one of the most sacred mountains in the world. There are small sacred communities near the mountain offering spiritual energy and peaceful experiences as well as spiritual guidebooks of the area. At one viewpoint we found many sacred circles made of rocks. We took a hike on the Panther Meadow Trail which would have been prettier in the spring when the wildflowers were in bloom.

Trailhead for MT Shasta starting at 7,900 FT

Bill spent the rest of Labor Day laboring with jobs around the RV like washing the tow car, checking the water in the RV batteries and cleaning the tanks.

August 22, 2014 Crater Lake, Oregon

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Bluer than blue, deeper than deep. We never imagined Crater Lake would be so beautiful! Our first glimpse took our breath away. Aqua, azure, cobalt, indigo, midnight, royal and sapphire, none of those words can fully describe the beauty of the color which can change depending on the time of day.

We left lovely La Pine State Park and traveled the short distance to Crater Lake National Park, which is the only national park in Oregon. They were doing quite a bit of road work in the park, taking advantage of the short summer season. After waiting a short time in stopped traffic, we arrived at Mazama Village Campground on the south side of Crater Lake National Park. We had planned on four days of dry camping here but after two days we were able to move to a full hookup site. It was nice to have electricity and heat with nighttime temperatures reaching the upper thirties and low forties.

The best way to view Crater Lake is by driving the 33 mile Rim Drive which makes a loop around the lake. It took us two days to drive the loop because of the thirty-three overlooks and things to stop and see. Crater Lake, at 1,943 feet, is the deepest lake in the United States and is fed by rain and snow, not streams or rivers. One of the Rangers told us if you took the Eiffel Tower and put the Washington Monument on top of it and then put the Statue of Liberty on top of those two, the torch would still be under water. If you gave each person on earth 7,000 gallons of water, the lake would not be empty. The lake is considered the cleanest large body of water in the world and is known for its clarity and intense blue color.

Crater Lake rests inside a caldera formed approximately 7,700 years ago when 12,000 foot tall Mount Mazama collapsed following a major eruption. The eruption may have been the largest in North America in the past 640,000 years. Later eruptions formed Wizard Island which is a cinder cone in the southwest area of the lake. If you gathered up all the ash from the Mount Mazama eruption and spread it evenly over the state of Oregon, it would form a layer eight inches thick.

Zoomed in view of crater on top of Wizard Island

Crater Lake National Park is home to more than forty volcanoes and everywhere we looked we saw cinder cones, peaks and hills from volcanoes that erupted in the past 500,000 years. Not all of them can be seen since some of them are underwater in the lake! Many of the volcanoes are extinct such as Wizard Island, but the volcano which holds Crater Lake is likely to erupt again!

Cinder cones in the distance

Watchman Peak, 8,013 ft

snow still visible on the lake shore in August

We stopped at the Visitor Center and talked with a super friendly and enthusiastic park ranger. We saw a fabulous film detailing how they believe Crater Lake was formed after the Mount Mazama eruption.

They have a trolley which will take you around the lake but we chose to drive our car and go at our own speed, taking as much time at each overlook as we wanted. Some of the highlights of our drive on Rim Drive was Pumice Castle Overlook where a layer of orange pumice rock has been eroded into the shape of a castle. Also Pinnacles Overlook was fabulous with colorful spires 100 feet tall eroded from the canyon wall. The Pinnacles are “fossil fumaroles” where volcanic gases rose up through a layer of volcanic ash, cementing the ash into solid rock. Phantom Ship Overlook had a view of a small island that they say looks like a small sailboat, though it takes quite an imagination to see the shape of a boat. Vidae Falls, with a drop of 100 feet was beautiful. But the biggest highlight of the drive was just seeing Crater Lake itself. At each overlook people gazed at the lake in awe, speaking in whispers or simply drinking in the beauty in silence.

We really wanted to take the narrated boat tour of the lake with a three hour stop to explore Wizard Island. We were ready to book the tour when we noticed in the description of the trip that you would have to hike down the side of the rim of the volcano to get to the water. The only way to get to the shore of Crater Lake is to hike down Cleetwood Cove Trail, a mile long, very steep and strenous trail that drops 700 feet in elevation. It was the description of hiking back up that got us. It was equivalent to climbing 70 FLIGHTS of steps. As one person said, it is one mile down and feels like ten miles back straight uphill. If you were injured or became ill, the only way back up was to be carried up by a team of Rangers. So we reluctantly and wisely gave up that idea! One of the Rangers told us they have flirted with the idea over the years of putting in a ski lift or some kind of lift that would make it more accessible to people. The park has managed to escape the boat access not being handicapped accessible because they did not want to damage the beauty and risk the fragile nature of the lake landscape. As the Ranger said, it is a hard choice when you consider keeping the park as an honored place.

White spot is boat and to the right is the steep trail from rim top to shore

zoomed in view of boat and can see clarity of water

We loved our time in Crater Lake and the campground was wonderful. We were able to get satellite TV with the only negative being no internet and limited cell phone service.

Other Crater Lake trivia:

Annual snowfall is 44 feet.
Widest area across the lake is six miles.
The lowest point from the rim to the lake is 570 feet.
The last time the lake froze over was 1949 but even then the Ranger’s footprints left a sloshy path as he walked across.
Crater Lake National Park was established in 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt designated it America’s fifth national park.
The Park is of importance to local Klamath Native American tribes, with Native Americans witnessing the eruption 7,700 years ago and passing down through time an oral history of the event. The Klamath call the Lake “gii-waas”, sacred place.
The lake was discovered in the 1850’s by a European, John Wesley Hillman. The Ranger said Hillman fell asleep on his mule and the mule stopped on the edge of the crater. Imagine Hillman waking up to that view!

In 1988 and 1989, a one person submarine made 47 dives to the bottom of Crater Lake to collect data on the lake’s hydrology, biology and geology. Another important reason for the submarine dives was to explore the geothermal energy of the lake. Beneath Crater Lake National Park lies a reservoir of restless magma. In the mid 1980’s a company from California announced its desire to build a power plant on public lands adjacent to the park. They planned to use geothermal heat to spin turbines to produce electricity for San Francisco. They drilled an exploratory well a half mile from the park boundary. This caused deep concern and with the findings of the submarine dives, Crater Lake joined a list of 15 other National Park Services deemed to have “significant thermal features” worthy of protection under the Geothermal Steam Act, a law passed by Congress in 1970. The submarine only explored 2% of the lake floor, so there is much more to learn about Crater Lake.

For the past three years southern Oregon has been experiencing near drought conditions, with Crater Lake’s snowfall last year at only 50% of the average. As of this time the lake’s depth has not been impacted.

August 19, 2014 La Pine, Oregon

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We didn’t have a reservation at La Pine State Park which is unusual for us during the summer tourist season, but we decided to take a chance since it was the beginning of the week and not the weekend. The camp host showed us several sites to choose from and we happily settled into a nice pull through site with full hookup.

This turned out to be such a fascinating area to explore. We had no idea we would explore a lava tube (cave) and see huge cinder cones and lave flows in Oregon!

We were eager to explore Newberry National Volcanic Monument, established in 1990. Newberry Volcano, central Oregon’s sleeping giant, has a lava flow covering almost 1,200 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island), making it the largest volcano in the Cascades chain. Unlike other volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest, this volcano is a composite volcano with dramatic lava flows that were very fluid during the eruptions, making it similar to volcanoes you would see in Hawaii. Newberry has as many as 400 volcanic vents around its slopes. Newberry Volcano has a large volcanic depression called a caldera. Scientists think the violent eruption which caused the caldera and occurred about 75,000 years ago, is responsible for volcanic ash deposits as far away as the San Francisco area. Newberry Volcano has been erupting over 400,000 years with the last eruption occurring about 1,300 years ago. Geologists say that while it is a sleeping giant, it could reawaken at any time and they monitor it closely.

We drove to the Newberry Caldera and stopped by the Lava Lands Visitors Center which included exhibits and 3-D topographic models of the volcano. We picked up a free pass to drive to the top of the Lava Butte Cinder Cone. The parking area at the top is very small so they limit traffic to 10 cars at a time. The pass gave us thirty minutes to explore the cone. The view at the top was magnificent. This cone is 7,000 years old and the lava flow from this cone once dammed up the Deschutes River.

We drove to an Obsidian Lava Flow and hiked a short distance to stairs that took us to the top of the lava flow. It was amazing to see the huge piles of lava rocks. What makes this lava flow special is the presence of large amounts of obsidian rock (black glass). I spoke with a lady who is an Oregon native. She said there used to be even more obsidian rock many years ago but people over the years carried them off. Today there are signs warning it is against the law to remove any rocks. The lady also said that there is only one other obsidian lava flow in the world, and that is in Russia.

We read there was a lava cave where we could walk inside a lava flow. So while in the area we went to the Lava River Cave. This is one of the longest, uncollapsed lava tubes in the

We could see our breath!

Northwest. The cave was once the pathway of an underground stream of molten lava. We knew the cave was going to be cold and dark, so we took jackets and flashlights. We entered the cave and immediately started to descend. The cave stays at a constant temperature of 42 degrees and it was very dark, even with flashlights. We picked our way slowly over rocks and uneven surfaces, occasionally coming to narrow flights of stairs taking us higher and further into the cave. The cave is a mile long and I found it more claustrophobic and unsettling than Bill. I don’t tend to be claustrophobic, but the dark lava walls and rocky uneven surface made me uncomfortable. There were quite a few tourists in the cave and I wondered how those walking with flipflops and using their cameras for light ever made it back out safely. I read the forest service is working on improvements to the cave with boardwalks over the uneven rocky surfaces and new stairways to make it more accessible to everyone. Hopefully this can be done without destroying the natural setting of the cave. There are bats living in the cave but we didn’t see any.

While at La Pine we got our first taste of cold weather. We awoke one morning to the sound of the heat pumps struggling to keep up and discovered the outside temperature was 38 degrees. Yikes! It wasn’t that long ago we were complaining about the heat. Now instead of searching for a campsite with shade, we were hunting sites with full sun!

August 12, 2014 Redmond and Bend, Oregon

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We had a great time in Redmond at the FMCA International Rally. It was five full days jam packed with seminars, vendor shopping, looking at new RV coaches on display and entertainment.

Looking East in our neighborhood of motorhomes

Looking west over the sea of motorhomes with the three sister mountains

Whew, it was exhausting! While there we had three days of rainy, chilly weather followed by sunny skies. We managed to get a picture of the Three Sisters as we left the Redmond Expo Center where the Rally was held. The Three Sisters form a volcano comprised by three volcanic peaks of the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the Cascade Range in Oregon. Each peak exceeds 10,000 feet and are the third, fourth and fifth highest peaks in Oregon. Together they have 15 named glaciers, nearly half of the 35 named glaciers in Oregon. Interestingly, although they are seen as one unit, the three mountains formed under different geologic situations. The North Sister is extinct, the Middle Sister is inactive, and the South Sister last erupted about 2,000 years ago and still could erupt. Satellite imagery in the year 2000 detected uplift in South Sister and the U.S. Geological Survey made plans to improve monitoring in the area. The mountains were originally named Faith, Hope and Charity by the early settlers but those names did not last and today they are called North Sister, Middle Sister and South Sister.

We arrived in Bend, population 80,000 and checked into a small private campground. Surprisingly there are not many RV park choices in Bend, and while this park was crowded with tight sites. While the park wasn’t great, we certainly enjoyed our activities while in the area.

Bend is bordered by the Deschutes National Forest and the Cascade Mountains, with the Deschutes River meandering through the center of the town. We drove around downtown Bend and stopped at lovely Drake Park where people were taking walks, riding their bikes or sitting and reading. Ducks danced across the water and tubers floated downstream.

Floating in the city of Bend OR on the Deschutes River

One day we drove the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway,

an 87 mile drive through a volcanic and glacial landscape. Volcanoes built up the land and glaciers tore it down. We saw evidence of this volcanic history along the road. During the last Ice Age glaciers flowed down both sides of the Cascades and cut deeply into the volcanic cones, gouging out glacial valleys. As we drove through Deschutes National Forest with views of snow-capped mountains and many lakes, we could see why this road is called one of America’s most important scenic byways. We drove on Century Drive, so named in the days of horse and buggy because it was a hundred mile dirt road and at one time was an ancient trading route for Native Americans where they hunted, fished and gathered. Appearing before us was magnificent Mount Bachelor,

Mount Bachelor

at 7,700 feet another volcano and home to the most popular ski resort in the Pacific Northwest. We were also able to make out the Three Sisters and Broken Top mountains. Those mountains were features in the movies “Homeward Bound” and “Rooster Cogburn”.

Oregon has many beautiful lakes and on this drive we passed Sparks Lake, Devils Lake, Elk Lake, Little Lava Lake and Big Lava Lake to name a few.

Big Lava Lake with Mount Bachelor in the background

Little Lava Lake is the source of the Deschutes River. During the Ice Age, eruptions took place under the glaciers and often melted holes in the ice, forming the more than 100 small and large lakes behind volcano dams and in craters.

We drove to the Pilot Butte State Scenic Viewpoint. Pilot Butte is a cinder cone rising 511 feet above the city. From the viewpoint we had views of Mount Bachelor, the Three Sisters and could just make out Mt Hood. We had a nice view of downtown Bend.

At the Pilot Butte crest was this bronze compass dial that showed the mountains peaks that could be viewed assuming good visibility

The day was a bit hazy so it was hard to get pictures.

We loved our time in Bend but we were looking forward to getting away from the cramped private park and heading to La Pine State Park just down the road.

July 29, 2014 Glacier National Park, Part 3

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The heat continued, not a stifling humid heat, but a dry heat that still made for some discomfort. We decided to drive back up to Logan’s Pass, and we knew we needed to get a really early start to get a parking spot in the Visitor’s Center lot. We drove once again on the Going-To-The-Sun Road and continued to marvel at the views and wonders of nature. Even though we had driven this route just a couple days ago, we never tired of the views and it was like seeing the jaw dropping beauty for the first time. The drive was faster since we didn’t feel the need to stop at every overlook to take pictures. We arrived at Logan’s Pass by

Heavens Peak

Clements Mountain

Reynolds Mountain

Columbian Ground Squirrel

10:00 AM and even though the sign said the parking lot was full, there was no Ranger to stop us from entering. It took quite a few times circling the lot before we finally spotted someone leaving. We spent time taking pictures and enjoying the scenery and by the time we left the Rangers had once again closed the lot and were directing traffic further east for the elusive parking spots. We returned home by heading west so we could see the views from the opposite direction, stopping for a picnic lunch at one of the scenic overlooks. We arrived home early enough in the afternoon to escape being out in the worst heat of the day. Unfortunately as I was fixing dinner the power went out throughout the campground. At 91+ degrees outside, the inside of the RV quickly became uncomfortable, driving us and our neighbors outside. After an hour and a half the power was restored.

Friday we spent the day exploring the east side of the park, even though we knew it would mean a lot of time in the car driving. We decided to drive west on the Going-To-The-Sun Road and then come home on the southern route outside the park. The heat was not quite as bad today, but the number of cars and people seemed to be growing and the traffic

Jackson Glacier

through the park was heavy even though it was early in the day. Our main destination today was “Many Glacier”in the northeastern corner of the park, considered to be the heart of the park and one of the less visited areas. The views here were gorgeous and we hoped to see a bear or two since we were told it was more likely to see one here. There were trails throughout the park which had been closed to hikers because of bear activity on the trails. Even though we kept a sharp eye out, we failed to see bears or big horn sheep or even mountain goats on this day.

Lower Two Medicine Lake

Lake Sherburne

Lake Sherburne and Grinnell Glacier

We wanted to find a geocache located seven miles from the Canadian border on the Chief Mountain Highway which connects the U.S Glacier Park with the Canadian Glacier park. The geocache was located at a scenic spot with a view of Chief Mountain. Legend has it that an Indian Chief was killed in battle and his wife, crazy with grief, leaped from the mountain

Chief Mountain

with her baby. Supposedly you can see the shape of a woman and child in the face of the mountain but we couldn’t pick it out. Bill had to roll under a barbed wire fence to retrieve the cache, somehow managing to dodge cow patties in his path. We encountered quite a few cattle on the road, including one standing in the middle of the road. We also saw many horses along the side of the road with no fence between them and the road.

We headed home on the long drive around the southern tip through the Blackfeet Indian reservation, a little disappointed with our lack of bear sightings. We were traveling down the highway when we saw two cars stopped in the middle of the road. In this area, that could only mean one thing, someone had spotted something. Sure enough we stopped and on the side of the road and up a small incline was a large brown bear. I have since learned they

Second Bear

are all called black bears even though they can be black, brown or blonde in color. Bill was able to snap some quick pictures before he lumbered farther into the brush and out of sight.

We really enjoyed our time in Glacier National Park. We had hoped to do more hiking but the heat made it somewhat difficult to do any long hikes. Truthfully, while the park is beautiful, we both felt that the Northern Cascades were prettier with many more glaciers and much more snow. A Ranger told us in the North Cascades that there is more water in one glacier in the Cascades than all the glaciers in Glacier National Park and we could see that is true. In 1850 there were an estimated 150 glaciers in Glacier National Park and by 1968 there were around 50. Today there are 25 glaciers and it is estimated that they will be gone by 2030 due to climate changes.

Through the Eyes of the Selphs

Bill and Diane's travel notes and pictures

Category Archives: National Park or Forest

September 18, 2014 Yosemite National Park Part 2

September 16, 2014 Yosemite National Park Part 1

September 8, 2014 Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada

September 4, 2014 Lassen Volcanic National Park, California Part 2

September 2, 2014 Lassen Volcanic National Park, California Part 1

August 29, 2014 Weed, California

August 22, 2014 Crater Lake, Oregon

August 19, 2014 La Pine, Oregon

August 12, 2014 Redmond and Bend, Oregon

July 29, 2014 Glacier National Park, Part 3