Day 7 - 150-years, and 6 days later...

Day seven was a travel day. We'd start the day in Bend and end the day in Ashland. The most direct route between the two cities is under 200-miles and takes approximately 4-hours. As you might assume, we did not take the most direct route...

The goal was to hit the road by 8:30am. With surprising ease, our trunk was closed and we were ready to hit the road a few minutes ahead of schedule.

Google maps estimated 2-hours and 40-minutes to get to Crater Lake. Lauren wisely checked the weather report to "make sure the roads are open." Make sure the roads are open? I inquired. "We might see some snow honey." she replied. That didn't make much sense to me but she indicated the roads should be open so I shrugged it off and moved on.

Two hours later we were fast approaching our destination (we could tell that we were getting close because by this point all of the cafe's and gas stations that dot Highway 62 now included "Crater Lake" in their name).

When we arrived at the south entrance I rolled down the drivers-side window to flash the ranger our annual parks pass and couldn't help but notice that the air was more crisp than it had been when we'd topped off the fuel 90-miles back.

As we continued to climb the hillside leading towards Crater Lake the air grew thicker, and the vistas more grey. A light rain picked up and we started to see evidence of winter, a patch of snow tucked away behind the shade of an old pine, wisps of snow from the last big snow clinging to dense patches of pine needles. Without warning or indication, the rain subtly changed to light snow and before long we were driving through a proper winter's snow.

The higher we climbed the colder the temperatures dropped, the more heavily the snow started falling.

 When we stopped for a photo op, Lauren (no doubt for fear of her own life) offered to drive so that I could "enjoy the view." I gladly took her up on the offer thinking "what I sweet girlfriend I have!"

As we approached the rim I was even more happy that Lauren had taken the wheel because not only was the snow now coming down at a near horizontal angle, but the road was quickly becoming more narrow.

As we ascended, the rim was (presumably) through the fog to our left, and to the right, was a (at times) sheer drop down the mountainside. As I looked down the side of the mountain from the passenger side window, barely able to see road between the right door and the ledge I took a deep breath and told Lauren "you're doing a great job, babe. Take your time, we're in no rush."*

*This advice was unnecessary as she had already reduced her speed to approximately 20mph.

The weather was bad enough to rule out any chance of hiking down to the lake (or of even seeing the lake for that point) but we had our hearts set on doing at least a little hiking so we found a spare space at Discovery Point and walked around a bit. It was still snowing but the wind had died down considerably and once we bundled up, we were comfortable enough to enjoy the 'views'. 

Presumably, the world's 7th deepest lake is in this picture...

 We read the signpost detailing the lake's discovery, 150-years and 6-days ago. Gazing out into an impenetrable fog of grey it was difficult to imagine what those first adventurers would have thought when they stood in this very spot so many years ago.

 Since we'd made it this far, we decided to walk up the Discovery path, at least far enough to say "we hiked". After only a couple of minutes of walking, we realized that away from the parking lot, with bus-loads of people getting off, looking disappointed, and getting back on, the experience was even more amazing. We decided that if anything could make this moment better, it was a hot beverage. Without hesitation we went back to the car, grabbed water, our backpack stove, a pot, two chairs, and a couple of packets of hot cocoa!

We hiked back up the trail with our gear and quickly found a quiet spot tucked behind a large pine. We fired up the stove, set out the camp chairs, and enjoyed half an hour of absolute peace and tranquility.

Sporting our new "gear" purchased at the Deschutes Brewery

After enjoying our cocoa, we "broke down camp" and headed back to the car. We stopped briefly at Rim Village and then headed down the south side of the mountain. Like replaying the ascent in reverse, the snow thinned and then turned to rain, heavy winds died down, and the banks of snow on the sides of the road reduced to small patches here and there.

Still holding hope for a hike at Crater Lake we stopped at the south entrance to investigate the last hike inside the park but the rain was steadily falling and we had a couple of solid hours in front of us and spending that sopping wet over-ruled hiking.

Along the beautiful road between Crater Lake and Ashland Lauren spotted a signpost for "Rogue Gorge". We pulled over and quickly realized that we were in for a treat. The Rogue River narrowed creating a strong current with a series of waterfalls. Lauren was no doubt thinking "this place is a dream come true!" I was thinking "this place is a photographers dream come true!"

A picture is worth a thousand words right? Here are a few thousand word's worth:

Lauren dipping her toes in the water (not peeing)

Squirrelly approved!

"Nature definitely wasn't drunk when she made this" -Lauren

 After we had soaked up as much natural beauty as we could, we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Ashland. We rolled into town earlier than expected so drove over to Southern Oregon University to check out campus and have a quick hobo-dinner. After dinner we met our hosts for the night Ginger and Larry, cleaned up a bit, and took a quick stroll through one extremely sleepy downtown, before retiring for the night.

-Dan

Another successful day in the books!