To Crater Lake and Ashland

Sean and Steven at the North Junction lookout

We left Bend on Friday August 3rd and headed to Ashland via Crater Lake. None of us had ever been there before.

Crater Lake and Wizard Island

Crater Lake was formed 7700 years ago when an ancient volcano erupted and the top 5000 feet of the volcano collapsed. The subsequent lava flows sealed the bottom of the lake, allowing it to hold water.

Cloudcap Lookout to the West

Today it is the seventh deepest lake in the world, 1,932 feet deep at its deepest point.

Wizard Island at the west end of the lake is a cinder cone that formed after the eruption. The water is pure and clean, there are no rivers or streams that empty into it, the water in the lake comes from rainfall and snow melt.

Cloudcap Lookout to the South

There is only one place to walk down to the edge of the lake, a one-mile trail that drops 700 feet. There are boat tours that run hourly in the summer, you can arrange to be dropped off at Wizard Island for the day. But they are popular and are typically sold out by 8 am, we arrived too late for that opportunity.

The trail is so steep, the boats are brought in by helicopter each spring and airlifted out at the end of the summer.

The Pinnacles

We took the 14-mile detour to see the Pinnacles, spiky formations called fumaroles caused by volcanic gases rising through the ash after the eruption.

The Pinnacles

Then it was time to head to Ashland. We were visiting with an old high school friend of Doug's, Chris Hearn and his wife Susan and their three kids. It was Susan's birthday and we kind of crashed her party, but they were nice and fed us an awesome meal when we showed up late, dirty and raggedy.

Chris and Susan and their 14-year old daughter Annika left first thing the next morning for the Mt. Ashland Hillclimb Run, a 13.3-mile run from town to the summit of Mt. Ashland, a 6,000-foot elevation gain.

I checked the results after we got home, and I see that Chris finished in 3:05:52, his daughter Annika finished in 4:04:02, and Susan finished in 4:11:44.

I'm in awe.

Star Wars Battlefront II, I think it was

The next morning the boys hung out with Chris and Susan's son Joe and daughter Eva. The boys did their usual thing.

Steven, Sean, Joseph and Eva

We left while Chris and Susan were still running uphill and headed toward the Oregon Caves.

To be continued...

- Kathleen