Oregon: Crater Lake Part 2

As I drove up to Crater Lake, I really had no idea what I was about to see.  The landscape looked like this:

There was some evidence of volcanic activity near by.  Mt. McLaughlin was in the distance, looking perfectly conical and volcano-shaped.  Then I saw this river, flowing through a crack in the lava rock around the base of Crater Lake: 

And finally, as I got closer, what I thought was just dirt turned out to be pumice, brown rock that is unexpectedly light and full of air, because it was lava that still had bubbles in it when it cooled and solidified while being blown out of the volcano.  Then I crested the rim of the mountain, and suddenly I see this:

It's amazing!  The most blue, most clear lake I've ever seen! And it looks exactly like what it is, a giant lake that has filled the crater of an exploded volcano.  The lake is five miles across, roughly circular, very deep, and has no inlets or outlets.  Its drainage area is tiny, just the cliffs that surround it.  It's also one of the deepest lakes in the world, the second deepest in North America.  I think it's amazing that its stable depth, where water in (from rain and underground springs) and water out (evaporation, draining through the ground) are equal, is so close to the rim, but not over it.  It's like a soup bowl that is just full enough, but difficult to carry without spilling. 

I drove around the lake, stopping at all the overlooks. I have a million pictures.  Here's my lunch stop.  Yum yum, reheated pasta! (And yes, that's a Jetboil.)

And here is a view across the lake as the sun started to go down:

 

And another one:

 I hiked up one of the nearby peaks for a better look.  Before the mountain exploded, this peak was a side-vent in the volcano.  The main volcano blew its top, leaving the side-vent higher than the new crater's rim.

The following morning (after my cougar-free night of camping) I watched the sun come up over the crater's rim: 

One other cool geology bit is the mini-volcano in the center of the lake:

After the volcano exploded and formed a huge crater, later eruptions started to form a new mountain inside the old one.  I think the coolest part about this mini-volcano (which isn't really all that mini, since it starts on the lake bottom) is that it has its own mini-crater top!

Finally, I left Crater Lake behind, and headed towards Eugene, Oregon.

Oregon: Crater Lake Part 1

Monday morning (Oct. 18th) I crossed the border into Oregon and headed east to Crater Lake, a giant extinct volcano with a lake filling its crater.  It's something that I've always wanted to see.  So I was a little concerned when I read that it often closes by October 15th, due to snow.  Luckily fall and winter seem to be a little behind schedule this year.  This has been true for my entire trip - I've had much warmer weather than I expected, and feel like I've gotten a second summer as I travel across the country.  So the park was still open, but all of the campgrounds were closed.  Fortunately, I met a friendly ranger at the visitor's center who suggested I try a particular one of the back-country sites which was A: only half a mile from the trailhead, B: free (I'm cheap) and C: located in an area where they allowed campfires.  It sounded like a great way for me to battle one of my personal "tiger" fears by solo camping in the back-country without too much stress or risk.  Here's a picture of a tiger (taken at the Seattle Woodland Park Zoo) to show how I feel about backpacking alone:

So I signed up!  Then I asked about hanging my food to keep it safe from bears.  "Oh, there aren't bears here," the ranger said.  "But a cougar was seen at your campsite two weeks ago - it didn't appear to be afraid of humans, but it didn't cause any real trouble, either...  Well, have a good trip, and sleep well!"  I thought "Yikes!  A cougar!  That's awfully close to a REAL tiger!" But I had already signed up, and I'm stubborn, so after a few hours of hiking around the crater and the lake, I drove to the trailhead.  I packed up my gear and hiked to my campsite.  Of course, I started a little late, and the sun disappeared as soon as I left the car.  So I was hiking through the fading light, looking everywhere for cat's eyes...  I found my campsite, lit a very big, cat-scaring campfire and sat near it to cook dinner.  Here's dinner and the fire.  I forgot my silverware, so I had to improvise a little:

When the fired died down I headed for the tent.  I'd like to say that I slept solidly, but I'll confess that I didn't.  I wasn't so much afraid as I was hyper-aware.  I kept noticing the wind in the trees, and even once woke up when a plane flew overhead.  It was a long, cougar-free night.  And as soon as it started to get light I hopped out of my sleeping bag, packed up, and was back at my car eating breakfast by dawn.  Here's a picture of a distant, extinct volcano (Mt McLaughlin) in the pre-dawn light: 

I'm not sure whether or not this camping adventure counts as defeating my fear of solo back-country camping.  It definitely did NOT change my fear of large cats... 

Traveling: Part 1

I've been on the road for about a month and a half now, and I'm starting to see a pattern.  There are two different travel modes: lone trips of three to five days visiting remote places and driving long distances followed by time spent with friends and relatives in a city.  Both travel modes are great experiences, but I find the transitions between them to be a little difficult.  Solo mode involves days of driving, staring at the scenery, camping out, keeping my own company, and generally feels like this:

Arriving in the city and staying with friends takes a little bit of time for adjusting, for adapting back to plural life.  The first day feels a little like this:

It's hard to remember to talk to other people, not just be quiet and observe.  I find myself missing the solitude and the feeling of movement and accomplishment that comes with driving.  After a few hours, that passes and I'm ready to really enjoy being with friends.  On the other hand, transitioning back the other way is a little harder.  After a week or two of friends and fun, the first day of driving can seem quite lonely.  The scenery is beautiful, my snack bag is full, and my favorite songs play through the stereo, but there is no one to share the experience.  After a little while (usually after the first night in the tent) the scenery and the quiet win over and a sort of shift occurs.  It's almost like my mind splits so I can play both roles - me eating cold baked beans from a can for breakfast while watching the sun rise and another me laughing at myself for the lack of planning that led me to the baked beans for breakfast.  It's funny and I share the experience with me.  At that point, I'm ready to start taking pictures like this:

That was me laughing at myself as the snow started to fall...

California: Heading North

Last Saturday morning Chuck and I and some friends went for a short hike in Point Reyes National Seashore, about an hour north of San Francisco.  We stopped for lunch near a small body of water named Bass Lake.  Chuck, seeing water, pulled out his fly-fishing rod and within 5 minutes had caught a fish (a bass, no less!  Guess the name is appropriate).  Not too shabby!

Down on the beach we found a waterfall, then started playing jump rope with the seaweed. 

 After hiking back to the cars, the group headed home to the city and I turned my little Civic north on Highway 1.  On the road again!  It was only two hours before dark, so I didn't make it very far before it was time to camp, in a state forest near Gualala (I just love the name Gualala).  The next day I continued up the coast for most of the day.  Highway 1 is deceiving - the speed limit is faster than any reasonable driver can actually go, given the winding turns and shear cliffs.  It was a little foggy, but I still had amazing views and stopped for several short hikes and side-trips.  I apologize for the flood of pictures, but there were just so many to choose from...  First, a sand-dune beach:

 

The beach was covered with giant kelp tangles that had washed ashore.  

Here's a field above cliffs further north:

And turning around, I saw a bunch of large birds riding thermals up into the sky:

My next stop was at a lighthouse with nice flowers and deadly rocks: 

Finally the road left the coast and entered giant redwood forests.  Besides stopping at Humboldt Redwood Forest and camping at Jedediah Smith Redwood Forest, I also hopped off the "major highway" of 101 and took a detour to see some really big trees.  First, some normal sized redwoods: 

Next, a giant downed tree: 

And its living friend:

 Looking up gives a real perspective on how huge these trees really are:

And finally, what trip to the redwoods would be compete without a living tree that you can drive through? 

Leaving the giants behind I headed further inland towards the Oregon border and Crater Lake!

California: Visiting Friends

So far I've written a lot about all the fun activities and places in California, and not so much about the people I visited there  San Fran has been full of friends.  I stayed with my brother Chuck, with my college friends Tom and Kate, and later with some of Chuck's friends.  I guess you could say that I was spreading out the mooching so no one was overly burdened... 

The first weekend I arrived was the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and Erin and Jim flew out from Colorado (covering in three hours the distance that took me three days in my car).  With them and Tom and Kate and our friend Lisa who came by for a day later in the week, and very brief appearance of Bailey, it was almost a mini Dorthwoth reunion!  Greenmen Unite!   Of course, I forgot to take pictures of everyone, but here's a few:

I also got to spend one evening with my former housemate Nadia, and was treated to a tour of the fruit trees and vegetable gardens she and her husband have planted.  I must admit that I am a little jealous of their homeowner status and the freedom that gives them to improve the place to suit them.  They definitely have made improvements! 

On the family side I spent a lot of time with Chuck, plus a weekend in Tahoe with both Chuck and Joe, and had an unexpected evening with my cousin's husband Daniel.  Not too shabby for a two-week pit-stop! 

California: Berkeley

One my days in the Bay Area I followed a friend to his office in Berkeley to look at cool robots and equipment, then spent the day exploring the area.  The computers and shop and data plots made me miss work quite a bit...  I was tempted to jump in and start debugging any broken stuff in sight!  Thinking that that would be a little odd, I left and walked around the Berkeley campus for a while.  But the itch to use my noggin didn't leave.  So I snuck into a math class in a big auditorium and listened to a lecture on differential equations for an hour.  I even took notes!  And I left feeling much better.  Maybe it's time for me to start looking for a real project... 

Here's a picture of the Berkeley campus:

From campus I took my packed lunch (yogurt, bread, avocado - staples of life) for a hike up the hill overlooking the city.  It was hot and dry and I could see the fog sitting on top of San Francisco, across the bay:

All the way at the top of the hill I wandered into a park and a very strange sight: eight or so people, three in mountaineering gear and the rest holding cameras and sound equipment.  Very curious, I hid behind a tree (to avoid being in the way of the cameras) and sat down to watch.  The guys in mountaineering gear stopped, took off their packs, and pulled out red and purple costumes and put them on.  Flying squirrel suits!  With fabric attaching wrists to ankles, helmets, and little parachute packs on the back!  Fantastic! 

I was hoping that they were going to jump off the mountain, but it didn't seem steep or high enough, so I waited to see what would happen.  The crew put on and took off their suits for the cameras three or four times, with close-up shots on zippers and helmets and I finally got up the nerve to go ask them what they were doing.  They said they were filming a reenactment of a jump, and no, they weren't going to leap out of any trees or off any cliffs today.  Too bad!  I headed back down to the city, people watched (Berkeley has good people-watching) and rode the subway back to foggy San Fran. 

California: Lake Tahoe

Last weekend (October 8th - 10th - yikes I'm behind on posting!) my brother Chuck and a whole bunch of his friends (including our brother Joe) stayed in a cabin near Lake Tahoe.  My mooching on Chuck was quickly extended to mooching on the whole group! 

There were about twenty people total, which meant that there was lots of carpooling for the 4+ hour drive from San Fran.  Chuck had just acquired a "new" truck with an extended cab and a small back seat, and was determined to fill all six of the seat belts.  He succeeded, and we headed down the highway like a can of enthusiastic sardines.  Two days later on the return trip we were more like exhausted, slightly stinky, slightly smoked sardines. 

With that many people around, the cabin was pretty full and I opted to pitch a tent near our little lake.  Waking up early Saturday morning I caught a good view in the dawn light:

Saturday some folks went for a bike ride around Tahoe and the rest of us went hiking through the neighboring ski mountain and onto the Pacific Crest Trail.  We climbed around on the ski-lift equipment at the top (I forgot to take pictures) and then headed on to Mt. Anderson.  We had fantastic views into Desolation Wilderness and Lake Donner (as in Donner Pass, and the Donner Party). 

The rocks we hiked through were pretty awesome, too.  There was dusty, crumbly conglomerate rock, big volcanic chunks sticking up in a couple of places, and at the end, Mt. Anderson, which had a weird rocky top and avalanche-slopes of the same rock going up the side: 

On the way back to the cabin we ran across a bulldozer on the  ski mountain:

 

Let's zoom in on Joe's face so we can see exactly how much he loves bulldozers (this picture is for our nephew Charlie):

That night we had chili for dinner and a campfire, a guitar, two banjos, and a bunch of singers for entertainment.  All in all, a fantastic weekend.  I think the best part really was the group of people.  It's great to see such a big a group of friends who all know each other, some through work, some from college, some (like me) just there for a little while, all forming a real community and working together to have a great time and share their lives.

California: Big Sur

Two days after Hardly Strictly's bluegrass madness, my friend Kate and I loaded up our bags and headed down south for a few days on the Big Sur coast.  It'd been a while since I had been backpacking, and I was excited to have a buddy to go with me.  I've really enjoyed driving across the country and camping on my own, but there are some things I don't do because I'm alone.  Backpacking is one of those things.  I'm sure I could go backpacking and everything would be fine, but I don't think I would be able to relax and enjoy the experience. For my own entertainment, I've grouped all the things that bother me about hiking and backpacking alone under the category of "tigers" - twisted ankles, running out of water, strange sounds in the night and sketchy strangers all count as tigers.  For day hikes I send a friend a text message with the trail name so she'll know where to send the search parties if the tigers get me.  With backpacking, it just seems that the tigers would have way too much time to get me before anyone would notice that I'm missing.  But with Kate nearby to keep the tigers away (or at least be eaten first) I was excited to pull on the pack and head out. 

Our first night we stayed in a campground on the Big Sur coast, with some amazing views of the sea. 

After setting up the tent we climbed down the the shore to watch the sun set.  It was AMAZING! I couldn't believe the colors and the waves!  Unfortunately it got dark quick, so we headed back to the campsite for hobo dinners cooked over the fire.

Wednesday morning we woke up early and drove to the trail head.  We had a ten mile hike up and away from the ocean then through a mountain valley that had been severely burned two years before.  But it was recovering fast - the grasses and shrubs were back, and bigger trees were green on top, despite charred bark going up twenty feet or more.  New redwoods had sprouted and were four or five feet tall. Here's a view looking straight up at a big redwood tree.  The charred part ends in a big green healthy top.

Our campsite for the night was along a creek.  Here's Kate and her dog Banjo hiking along the creek.

 Then we got to our final destination: Sykes Hot Springs!  There are at least three hot water pools in the area -  spots where hot water seeps out of the rocks near the creek, and industrious people have built soaking pools out of rocks and sand bags.  It's a great way to relax after a hike.  It's also quite popular - even mid-week in early October we met several other people at the springs.  We set up camp then went for a long soak, then came back for dinner.  The next morning we opted for another soak before hitting the trail.  Here I am, enjoying my breakfast from our pool.

On the way back out we passed a redwood that did not survive the fire, and had to be cut to clear the trail. 

A little later Kate spotted a swarm of ladybugs and decided to let them crawl all over her...

And as we got closer to the ocean, we left the forest behind and returned to the dry mountain hillsides. 

Thanks, Kate and Banjo, for a great trip and especially for keeping those tigers away!