Peter And Evie - Travel blog: Oct 15 - Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Oct 15 - Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

We started out to go to Crater Lake, when the low tire pressure light came on in the car. Uh Oh. Yesterday, when we were in one of the wayside turnouts, I hit a pothole with the car, so I thought that maybe that was why the low pressure light came on. So, we added air into the low tire, and went into the nearby larger town of Medford, to a tire store that sold Michelin tires. Of course, since I have an all-wheel drive, if you need one tire replaced, you need all four replaced. As it turns out, when they analyzed the tires, they did NOT find any problems with the tire, and concluded that the light came on because the pressure in the tire was low, and it was cold in the morning. So, they added air to all the tires, and off we went, grateful to have saved the cost of 4 new tires.
Up to Crater Lake we went. We first went to the Visitor Center and watched a 22 minute video of the creation of the Crater Lake. Very interesting. The water in the lake is some of the purest in the world. No water flows into it, only snow melt. And they get around 44 feet of snow a year! And, the Lake is around 1,950 feet deep! Also, we learned that it is a Caldera (a large crater formed by a volcanic eruption and subsequent collapse of the magma chamber), not a Crater (frequently the bowl-shaped feature caused by the eruption through the volcanic vent). OK.
Next we went up to the Rim Village, that has a nice paved observation walkway along the south rim of the Lake. We hiked along the Discovery Point trail, along the steep drop off rim. Then, over to the Sinnott Memorial Overlook, which had a lot of interesting, informative tablets.
We then drove the 33 mile loop drive around the entire Crater Lake. They close the North and East Rim roads for the winter, usually by November. But today the weather was sunny and in the 50's. There are a lot of turn outs to stop and see the Lake from the rim from the various points of view. Since it is a rim road, at around 7,000 - 8,000 feet, there are also incredible vistas looking on the backward side of the rim. So, I will list the various turnouts we saw, with a bunch of photos showing the various views.