Crater Lake & Umpqua National Forest
Wednesday morning, 8/10, was laundry day prior to departing
for Crater Lake. The East Lake RV Park
was a great place to stay, but the laundry facility was less than
desirable. It took much longer than expected…it
was early afternoon before departing for Crater Lake. Our itinerary always included a stop at
Crater Lake. However, as this travel day
approached we had talked about skipping it altogether. There had recently been a forest fire in the
park resulting in considerable smoke and some road closures. It’s just a lake, eh? Do we really want to go if the conditions
aren’t good? Fortunately the latest
updates indicated the fire was contained and roads had been reopened.
We made it to the park late in the afternoon with no
campground reservations for that evening.
Our hopes were to land in one of the campgrounds in the park. After some waiting for road construction to
take the shorter West Rim Drive, we finally caught a glimpse of the lake. Wow!
This wasn’t just a lake. There’s
good reason this area has been made into a national park. We enjoyed the drive around the west rim and
made our way to the campground which was found to be full L. Back in the car, we made our way around the
East Rim Drive. We couldn’t get enough
of the views but it was getting late and we still didn’t have a place to
stay. After finally catching a fleeting
cell signal, a spot was reserved at an RV park at nearby Diamond Lake.
With dinner cooking on the grill we took Chewy down to
Diamond Lake to catch the sunset. The
water was chilly but that didn’t stop Chewy from molesting some of the local
waterfowl, a favorite pastime of hers.
The sunset was beautiful and the skies were clear…so far Oregon has
exceeded our expectations.
Our arrival at Crater Lake was a day before the peak of the
Perseid meteor shower. A heat wave over
the area had brought with it exceptionally clear skies. Over dinner we planned to get up early and
head to the lake for some viewing of the meteor shower and the sunrise.
When we rolled out of the camper at 3:00 am the night sky
was lit up big time. It didn’t take long
before we were rolling around the East Rim Drive checking each pull-out for a
good Milky Way shot. Eventually we
stopped at the Phantom Ship Overlook and managed an ok shot, but it wasn’t
quite what I wanted. As we made our way
around the SW corner of the lake, the sun was starting to wash out the
stars…but not yet enough to mask the numerous Perseid meteors. The focus went from the night sky to the
beautiful sunrise. Crater Lake is an
exceptionally beautiful setting to watch the sunrise. If ever the chance to visit…do yourself a
favor and get up early! As with most
things, what was captured through the lens represents only a fraction of how
marvelous it was to watch the sun come up over the horizon.
With the sunrise forever burned into our memory we went back
to camp to soak up more coffee and grab the trailer. Adjacent to Crater Lake N.P. is the Umpqua
National Forest with its towering trees and namesake river. The three of us were hoping to find a nice
place to camp in the forest off the grid to do some hiking and fishing. This was going to be a bit of a challenge…towing
a trailer with a VW Passat doesn’t make it easy to get far into the
sticks. A quick stop by the ranger
station was rewarded with some good info on where to go from Patrick, the
fisheries biologist. He recommended a
campsite where Skookum Creek intersected a gravel road. Once there, we found a great hunting camp
next to the creek where we spent the next three nights.
The first afternoon in the Umpqua we decided to hike to Skookum
Lake. The hike to the lake was mostly
downhill. The last half was a pretty
steep descent with some views of the lake.
We met a fellow hiker at the trailhead who had just made it back
up. He said the shoreline of the lake
was lined with thousands, if not millions, of baby frogs. Sure enough…when we arrived at the lake the
shoreline was crawling with tiny baby amphibians. Turns out every year about this time there is
a massive orgy of toads resulting in millions of little baby toads. It was a cool sight to see, but also somewhat
creepy. Chewy definitely did not like it
at all. She was afraid to take a step
anywhere near the shore. We stayed long
enough for me to make a few casts at some of the lake’s rising trout. With no success we headed back up the trail
which now became very steep. The hike
was an adventure, but not one that we would likely repeat.
The next couple days were spent exploring the Umpqua and Rogue rivers. I broke out the fly rod and managed to snag a few of the less wary trout, the biggest of which might have barely topped six inches. The evenings we enjoyed some laid back chilling around the campfire with some good eats. With the Perseid meteors still around, I did manage to pry Laura and Chewy out of bed for some early morning night sky pics.
After a relaxing few days in the woods, it was time to head
to the coast (and find a shower!!!)
