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...