FIFTY STATES AWAYThis has been one of my favourite days on this trip, not only were we lucky and pleasantly surprised, but we encountered views that simply do not have words to describe them! Lakes all around!
Starting back at this morning, we headed out from Red Bluff, continuing the drive through Northern California. This part of the state is wine country, a lot of the drive led us part the various fields of vines. It was a fairly long drive where the scenery and temperature changed rather dramaticly from warm, sunny, pastel fields to colder, fir tree lined, mountain peaking landscapes. Although I have really enjoyed the sunshine and the great weather it was oddly exciting to see snow.
We were hoping to visit Crater Lake Park in Oregon. This national park houses the deepest lake in the US, at its max depth the stunning blue water fills a whopping 1,949ft (594m). The park at this altitude is prone to fresh snow flurries, so we are somewhat concerned about the weather. A lot of the parks seem to be mostly shut for the spring and will re-open in the summer with the better weather. Driving up the mountain we were really worried that we wouldn’t be able to see the crater at all.
As we approached there was a list of roads within the park that were closed, this brought a sinking feeling to both of us, especially seeing that the road that goes around the crater was also on the list. We decided to carry on driving along the snow plow cleared roads towards the park. It was incredible, each side of the road the snow rose up to around 15ft with avalanche warnings displayed it was a rather edge-of-your-seat drive. We made it safely to the rangers station, where we were informed that although a lot of the roads were shut, because they were buried under 30ft of snow, we were allowed to go up to the restaurant and gift shop at a place called rim village, wondering if we might get a glimpse we headed up.
Reaching the village the temperature dropped even further, the snow here was as tall as the buildings and we noticed that everyone had clambered up a snowy slope and gathering for pictures. So we went for it, carefully treading up the embankment, it was completely rewarding and breathtaking! The stunning views across the crater with the bright blue water contrasted by the crisp white snow and lush green firns. We were really lucky that a kind lady nearby got some fabulous shots of us infront of this incredible lake, it was unreal!
After warming ourselves up with some homemade chili in the restaurant we headed back down the crater and towards the very North-West corner of Oregon towards our next activity. We drove past another great lake and the sun had set just far enough to illuminate it a bright blue colour, our final outstanding view of the day.
