Day 61 – May 10 – Crater Lake Revisited

It rained hard a couple of times during the night.  Chloe is afraid of loud noises and the rain on the roof of the camper qualified to her as a loud noise.  Since she doesn’t like be the only one awake, she walked over my legs and up the side of the bed to get in my face.  Once she knew I was awake, she sat down beside me so I could put my arm around her.  Feeling better with me awake, she went back to sleep – me I was awake for a while holding her.

Morning came and we all slept in until about 8:30 – it was still raining.  I got up, made coffee and the rain stopped, so I took the dogs for a walk.  Just got back into the camper and it started raining again.  That is how the morning passed; rain, then sun followed by more rain.

Around 1:30 I looked at the web camera on the National Park Service web site for Crater Lake and couldn’t believe my eyes – the camera pointed out toward the lake showed a clear image, not fog.  Dorrie called Rick and said we need to make a road trip to the park.  We were on our way by 1:45.  Two different times deer ran across the road in front of us on the way to the park.

We ran through rain and sun on the road to the park, then as we got closer the rain turned to snow.  The trees had snow on them that was not there on our first trip into the park.

The trees were covered with new snow

The clouds allowed some blue sky from time to time

The parking lot at Rim Village was full of cars – I guess everyone had been watching the web cameras, or maybe it was just because it was Saturday.  We fought our way through the snow to a rope barrier and gasped at the sight before us.  

Dorrie in the snow

This is mostly new snow from the past 2 or 3 days

The blue of the lake has its own name – Crater Lake Blue (like Robin eggs have their own color; Robin Egg Blue).  Here are some pictures – it is a shame they don’t tell the complete story.

 

The color varied, depending on where the sun hit the surface or if it was cloudy

Wizard Island is a volcano within a volcano – it was formed after the basin started to fill with water.  It stands over 700 feet above the water, but is close to 2,000 feet tall from its base (most is under water).  If you could see the top of the island, you would see a perfect shaped cone like most of us think a volcano should have.

 

You can see the cone opening at the top

Dorrie and I with the island in the background

We returned to the campers and later I checked the web camera and Wizard Island was almost not visible.  It was a great day for us.  We have one more chance to see the rich blue of the water tomorrow – we are hoping there will be full sunshine!