South to Crater Lake

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When we were planning out our travels surrounding the solar eclipse, we had booked some spots heading into southern Oregon after the eclipse. The original concern was dealing with the upcoming Labor Day holiday. Oftentimes spots are hard to come by during the big holidays so we had booked a spot back in early May. The trouble was, it seems to be a bit early in the season to be heading south plus there were two geocaching spots we really would like to get to before we consider our trip to the Pacific Northwest to be complete. One is a bit southeast of Portland Oregon while the second is in the mountains just east of Seattle Washington. Both of these are well north of where we are but when we attempted to change our reservations a month or two ago, we were not having any luck finding an opening over Labor Day in northern Oregon. I suppose we should have put a bit more thought into the plans 4 months ago and we could have booked a spot heading in the direction we now want to go. But that's just how it goes sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, we are excited to be heading to our next stop. It will take us to one of the places on many traveler's bucket lists - Crater Lake National Park. The campground we are staying at is Collier Memorial State Park which is about a 45 minute drive from Crater Lake. Right now, there are some pretty large wildfires burning in the Crater Lake area. Of course, that type of problem cannot be predicted so we just have to roll with the punches. It is a rather smoky drive from Bend to Chiloquin but it is also a pretty short drive at just under 110 miles. We chill out at a rest stop along the way to kill some time before the 4 PM check in time. The site we are in is a full hookup 50 amp site. Which isn't typical for state parks, but this one has a few full hookup sites. There are enough trees that we can't put out our awning, but we also find that there are enough trees that we don't need to put out our awning. But they are pine trees and we find that the pine cones dropping onto the roof of the rig became a bit of an annoyance.

Our first full day, we decide to drive to Crater Lake. As we are approaching from many miles out, it looks like the whole place is socked in with smoke but we continue our drive and are pleasantly surprised to find the smoke levels are not too bad once we get into the park. There is road construction during the week so a portion of the 33 mile rim road around the crater is closed but that left the 25 miles along the south, east and north still open to traffic. Since the smoke conditions were decent, we decided to skip the visitor center and do the drive to numerous overlooks while we had a chance to see things.

Crater Lake

Crater Lake was formed less than 8000 years ago when Mount Mazama erupted spewing debris over hundreds of miles. When things settled down, there was a huge hole in the mountain that slowly filled with rain and snowmelt. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the USA at 1943 feet. The lake is roughly 5 to 6 miles across. We decided not to spend the $42 per person for a boat ride figuring we could enjoy the views from above for free.

Waterfalls

Still a Bit of Snow in September

Another Viewpoint

Just a Little Smoky Haze

When we got to the north end of the rim road, you could see the smoke coming from less than a mile away. We didn't see any flames at that point but you knew they were there. With the road closed for construction further west, we start to drive back the way we came. Along the southeast portion of the rim road, is another road that takes you back to the Pinnacles. There was both an earthcache and a traditional cache hidden just down a trail along the pinnacles to a point just outside the national park boundary. I'm glad we took the detour to go check the place out. At first glance, the rock formations look a bit like the hoodoos at Bryce Canyon. But these were formed in a much different manner. Each spire represents what used to be a vent for some of the hot gasses before the eruption took place. The heat from the escaping gasses welded the various minerals into a very hard lining for each vent. Over the last several thousand years, the softer rock surrounding each vent was eroded away, leaving these spires which are often still hollow.

Smoke from Fires on North Side of Crater Lake

Pinnacles in Foreground

Pinnacles on One Side of Valley

On the way back from the Pinnacles but before getting to the rim road, there is a trailhead for a one mile hike back to a waterfall. Plaikni Falls trail was a nice walk. It was even listed as handicap accessible but it seemed to me that it would be a bit of a challenge for a wheelchair or scooter. The water is not coming from the lake but just from snowmelt. It seems to be awfully late in the summer for there still to be snow to feed this waterfall. I know they normally average 14 feet of snow each winter, but this past winter was an exceptionally bad one. There were lots of wildflowers in bloom right along the water and lots of moths or butterflies all over the place while we were visiting.

Plaikni Falls

Colorful Moth

We stopped by the visitor center to watch the park video and get our national passport book signed. By stopping at Crater Lake early in our stay, we should be able to fit in a second visit before we head out of the area. This is definitely a very nice park that even the smoky conditions can't cover up.

The next day we head south to the town of Klamath Falls. We don't have any particular places to see but it is the closest "big" town in the area. We stop at a couple different bike shops and we each take a bike out for a test drive. I came close to getting the Trek that I rode, but it seemed to be just a bit too big of a frame. A quick stop at the library to replenish our phones with TV shows and movies on the Amazon Prime App. We have been finding this works out well for those evenings when we need some sort of television entertainment but don't t have TV reception or there isn't anything worth watching.

Part of Collier Memorial is a logging museum. It is on the opposite side of the highway and a creek, but they have bridges and underpasses to allow us to simply walk from the campground to the museum. As a guy, I found that the machinery and signs describing the stuff to be quite interesting. They have the equipment grouped into different eras so it is possible to see how the logging process has changed over time. They offer free, ranger led wagon rides around the facility with a small and very old bulldozer as the means of pulling the wagon. We skip the ride, mainly because I wanted to take my time checking out everything more closely. All of the old cabins that have been relocated here have sprinkler heads over the center of each one. I suppose given the ever present fire danger, having the sprinklers operating during nearby fire events could keep a single ember from taking the whole place out.

Entrance Gate to Logging Museum

Intricately Carved Boots, Hat and Lunchbox

Old Log Skidder

Fixer Upper Dodge Truck

Wagon Tour

Old Cabin

Old Grocery Store

I discovered there is a trail out of the campgrounds that goes along the Williamson River. Chris wasn't in the mood for a ride, so I went solo. It turns out to be a pretty nice mountain biking trail with mostly easy terrain. The trail ends in a national forest campground. From the looks of it, most of the spots here are level and big enough for our rig. We might need to remember this place for any future visits.

Along Williamson River with Smoke in Distance

We met up with another couple we first ran into during the Newmar Kountry Klub rally in the desert at Quartzsite last January. Marge and Paul have been camping at Collier Memorial for a few months volunteering as camp hosts and at the logging museum gift shop. Their stay here was coming to an end as the camping season wraps up. We got together for dinner one night to catch up on things and just get to know them better. They will be heading east to the NKK fulltimers and the international rallies in Missouri this fall. I suppose the rallies would have been fun to attend. We could catch up with other Newmar owners we have met in the past and meet some new couples but we still have lots we would like to see and do while up in the Pacific Northwest and Missouri seems like a long ways away.

Staying here for a week, it becomes clear that we are situated in the middle of chipmunk country. There are dozens of them and they are everywhere. They obviously have become accustomed to having people and RVs around and are very impressive beggars.  There were times as we step out of the rig, we nearly step on them. Chris even had one jump up on the corner of her chair while reading outside. Back in our home in Rush NY, we had a chipmunk problem and I would catch the little buggers in a small Have-a-Heart trap, let our dog Shelby watch them for 20 minutes then take them back to the pond to go "swimming". Over the years, I lost track of how many I had caught. But I'm pretty sure I know where chipmunks go to heaven - the campgrounds at Collier Memorial State Park! The upside to having so many chipmunks around, the grease tray on our grill is now perfectly clean!

Meet Chip, He Wants to Clean Your Grill

We did have a few times during our stay where the winds were just right to cover the campgrounds with a thick cloud of wildfire smoke. We even had ash in the air. On those days we tended to put on the air conditioning and just stay out of its way. All of the places we have been in Oregon have had a burn ban in place, but that doesn't mean we don't get to have the the smell of campfires wherever we go. We did get to make it back to an interesting spot in the forest just north of the campgrounds during one of the smoky days. Spring Creek which runs into the Williamson River near the campgrounds is a pretty impressive creek. Lots of water flowing with some sections of rapids to watch and enjoy. Most of the water flowing here comes from a section in the forest about two miles away that is literally bubbling out the water from the ground. Not just one big spot, but dozens of spots. I found pictures didn't really do the place justice so I have a video I shot more for the sounds than the views.

We wanted to get back up to Crater Lake again and had been trying to gauge the smoke levels to see which day might work. We ended up going on Labor Day which worked out well because the road construction crew was off so the west rim road was open to traffic. Much of the "road" was torn up and just gravel. This isn't a simple repaving project. Several of the scenic overlooks had all sorts of construction equipment and huge piles of gravel and other supplies.  Even if the road wasn't great, the views we got were pretty nice. One of the virtual geocaches we tackled took us to Crater Lake Lodge. This place is quite remarkable both inside and out. I can only imagine what the guest rooms must be like. Quite a few of them definitely have great views.

Road Construction at Crater Lake

Crater Lake Trolley Wasn't Running Because of Fires

Crater Lake Lodge

View of Crater Lake with Lodge on Right

Fireplace Inside Lodge

Nice Craftsman Style Furniture

Sinnott Memorial Overlook

The fires we had seen the last time we were here a few days earlier had grown considerably. As we got back to one of the more popular overlooks of Crater Lake, the billowing clouds of smoke on the opposite side of the road were nearly as impressive. At one pullout, we got a good view of the actual fire. Every now and then you could see one of the trees light up like a match. There were two firefighters at the overlook basically watching the fire progress. Since there are no towns or buildings in the path of this portion of the fire, they are letting the fire burn and waiting for the fall rain or snowfall that will put the fire out. Not that we want to see the forest burning, but I will admit it is a very impressive sight.

Huge Plume of Smoke

Overlooking Wizard Island with Smoke Nearby

Fires Raging

One of Many Beautiful Buildings

Next to the Visitor Center

View Along Annie Creek

For our last full day, we head southeast to the town of Sprague River. There is an old railway converted to bike/hike trail that sounded interesting. Another cacher had placed dozens of geocaches all along the trail - roughly every tenth of a mile. We find a parking spot next to the little library in town and head out. This turned out to be one of those plans that was better on paper than in practice. At first we headed east. We weren't having much luck with finding each geocache, plus it is really tough to get into any type of bicycling flow when you need to stop every 500 feet or so and look around in bushes for caches. So we decided to just ride past them and if we feel like stopping for a break, we could be sure there would be a cache to look for not too far away.

Oc&E Woods Trail in Sprague River

Well this place is high desert country and the trail to the east had no real trees to provide any amount of shade. The sun beating down on us made us turn around after a couple miles. Possibly the trail to the west was better? There might be a few more trees in that direction, but the gravel surface was rather thick in spots so you needed to keep your speed up in order to plow through them. It didn't take long before we decided we could find a better place to ride. So we made our way back to the car and headed back to camp and I showed Chris the forest trail I had done the other day back to the primitive campgrounds. This was much more our type of bike ride.