Oregon - Crater Lake

We sure have lucked out on the weather for all of our travels, and this day in Crater Lake National Park was no exception.  We had 'chamber of commerce' weather!  As it turned out, this was the first day since mid July that the park has had clear, smoke free, skies.  We got to the park at 8am, so that certainly helped.

An area of the Pumice Desert where nothing grows but these small red leaf plants.

Looking North from the north side of the East Rim Drive

The park is quite high in elevation, for the drive around the caldera.  We topped out at 7642'!  I think part of the blue sky was that we were just a lot higher than the smoke in the lower elevations.

The smoke did roll in later in the afternoon, and really shut down the visibility.  It was difficult to see across the lake. But since I didn't take any photos of a smokey wall, you get to see these instead!

We had a lovely day of exploring and stopping at all the 'Kodak picture spots' and view points.

Lefty even got in a shot or two.

It was about 10 when we finally got the trailhead of Plienik Falls for a short hike to the top of the trail and the water fall.  It was a good hike for our first high elevation hike!  Since it was wheelchair accessible all the way, it was pretty easy, unlike the steep, rooted one in Scotland.

After our hike, we continued down the road to the Pinnacles, a steep canyon full of volcanic fumaroles that have been eroded away by water many, many years ago.

 Another short hike followed by a picnic on the tailgate and we were set to continue back up to the rim road and to the lodge.

We were hoping to meet our friend Capt Mike, from La Paz.  He's also just sold his boat and is now captaining one of the tour boats on Crater Lake.  He was returning from a couple of days away and unfortunately we were not able to meet up with him.  We had a nice afternoon in the lodge people watching and enjoying a glass of wine. We'll catch up with Mike and his wife over the winter!
Now we head south to Lakeview to meet up with Tom's family for some group camping.