Crater Lake National Park

Jodie and the kids

We left Portland today for Crater Lake National Park. Thanks again Jodie and Jojo for letting us stay with you guys! We did get a picture with our hosts before we left, but since Jojo was hard at work he missed the photo opportunity.

Crater Lake

Crater Lake was a nice park. The lake was formed when the volcano collapsed on itself. The lake is not fed from rivers or streams, just snow and rain. The lake is the deepest lake in the US. This past winter the Crater Lake area received over 600 feet of snow so of course on our hike today we got to go through more snow, thankfully I wore the correct shoes!

Mountains for miles and miles.

When we started our hike we had sunny skies and 77 degrees and when we finished the hike it was 67 with rain. The hike we did today went around the lake (Rim Trail/The Watchman), although we only hiked for two and a half hours so we didn't go all the way around. We spotted two different herds of deer, one of the two ran out in front of us otherwise we probably would have completely missed them. The lake was beautiful and is also considered to be the cleanest lake. It was turquoise blue. The views around the lake weren't that bad either, rolling mountains in all directions as far as the eye could see. I noticed the clouds and heard the thunder and thought that we were going to be safe. About five minutes before we finished little chunks of hail and a lite sprinkle of rain fell on us.

Mini snowman on the trail.

Tonight we are staying at a KOA just outside of Medford, OR. Tonight is also the hottest camping night that we've had so far. It was 91 degrees when we got here. It's supposed to get down to 62 tonight...we're both hoping it cools down sooner than later, we're both sweating! Maybe this is our preparation for camping in Utah....