Andy, on the Crater Lake Rim
The Rogue River Gorge on the Upper Rogue
More Rogue River Gorge
Andy: A driving day, but a scenic one. Drove from Bend, Oregon to Grants Pass, Oregon. Tomorrow we start a four day river trip down the Rogue River. On route to the Rogue, we stopped at Crater Lake and the Rogue River Gorge (up river from the section we will kayak).
Some geology: Crater Lake was once a volcano called Mt. Mazama, and was nearly the size of Mt. Shasta. 8,000 years ago it blew its top. Eventually, the crater filled with rain and runoff to form the 2,000 ft deep lake. There are no streams into or out of the lake, and the water level never varies by more than 3 feet! The rain and snow melt are perfectly offset by evaporation and seepage. The eruption sent lava flowing into the "ancient" Rogue River canyon on its western lake. The canyon filled with 600 feet of lava. The Rogue River then cut through this lava (in only 8,000 years!) to form the beautiful gorge in the photo below.
We attempted to see a movie, but failed. We carefully
punched the address into our van's high tech navigation system. With
numerous turns it delivered us to the theater. Actually, it delivered us
to a vacant field in the middle of a bunch of homes. No movie theater in
sight! So much for technology.
Wendy: Judy, your son drives just like you! We left Bend, Oregon
and traveled en-route to the Rogue, Andy at the wheel. When he checked his
email on his palm pilot/cell phone, at the same time that he tried to find NPR
on the satellite radio, looked at the atlas to chart our path, tried to enter
the destination into the computerized navigation system that came with the van,
and attempted to drink from his coffee cup, all at the SAME time, I finally
insisted on taking a turn with the driving. For those who don't know
Andy's mom Judy, she drinks coffee, puts on lipstick and talks on the phone
while driving daily....genetics are amazing, and I was once again reminded of
how similar Andy is to his mom!
We stopped at Crater Lake on a whim, and what a good stop it was! The blue color of the lake mirrors the color of the sky (per the little brochure, this is due to the fact that blue light waves are the last to be absorbed by the lake ), and today it was a very deep blue with wisps of gray. It is huge and deep, and all around is volcanic rock which reminds you of how it came to be. There is a 60-mile road that travels the perimeter of the lake. We only drove part of it, but did talk about coming back at some point to ski it in winter. The road is closed in winter, and they allow hikers and skiers into the park when it is under several feet of snow. Not sure if it will fit into this years plans, but maybe for the future....
Andy, on the Crater Lake Rim |
The Rogue River Gorge on the Upper Rogue
|
More Rogue River Gorge |