The first day we stopped for lunch at the Pie House (south of Portland, I think?), where a revolving case near the door displayed an array of impossibly tall pies and cakes, and where Simon and Josie were served literal, actual carafes of soda pop.
The approach to Crater Lake from the north is quite dramatic: you’ve been curving through the mountains for miles and miles and then suddenly you turn due west onto a road so straight it's like an optical illusion, like an arrow pointing directly at your destination... and it’s not that the hills have gone away, either – it’s as though for some reason the roadmakers got tired of winding around the obstacles and decided to just blast straight over them. Driving dead ahead into the sunset along this vertically undulating vector was kind of eerie... at times it seemed like if you floored it at the right moment you'd go soaring up into the sky at the crest of the next hill.
As we drove we listened to Freddy the Detective on tape and thumbed through the guidebook, discovering that Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States; that its water is so blue that Kodak used to include apologetic notes with people's photographs of the lake, thinking they must have screwed up the developing process; and that it is the result of either a 12,000 foot mountain collapsing in on itself or the defeat of Lord Lao, God of the Underworld, by the God who lives at Mt. Shasta -- or possibly both.
I’ve always thought of Crater Lake as a volcano that blew up, a la Mount St. Helens. But no -- it’s a volcano that collapsed after a series of eruptions around the edges emptied the magma chamber miles below, leaving the mountain above it unsupported. Geologists believe that the mountaintop may have sunk 8,000 feet in a single day -- can you imagine? They're not sure how long it took the resulting caldera to fill with water, but it's now relatively stable, as the 17 billion gallons of water that evaporate each year, plus the 17 billion gallons that drain out through a porous lava wall on one side, are replaced each year by 34 billion gallons of rain and melting snow.
(The conical Wizard Island is either Lao's hat, or a lava cone that grew up in the caldera before the volcano went to sleep again, depending on your worldview.)
Highlights of our stay at Crater Lake included:
1. The hike up to Garfield Peak, the anticipation of which prompted some despair on the part of Josie:
On the way up we developed a new appreciation for the song “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” which, it turns out, is marginally easier to listen to than constant whining. We initiated, but did not complete, a variation that began "34 Billion Gallons of Rain in the Lake." At the top we enjoyed crackers, cheese, tinned oysters, beef jerky, and a sense of accomplishment:
2. The motion-activated paper towel dispenser in the campground bathroom, which was a) insanely oversensitive, and b) located in a narrow space between stall and wall where everyone had to squeeze past each other to get to the sink, the mirror, and the plug... so our every move was punctuated by an odd buzzing noise and the appearance of another 10 inches of paper towel. In the morning, when several women were in there washing their faces and brushing their teeth and straightening their hair (yes, really) and recharging their cell phones, our demand for paper towels just couldn’t keep up with the proffered supply, which frequently threatened to reach the floor. (I’m always encouraged by the female camaraderie evinced in situations like these. In the camp showers, for instance, where 75 cents bought you 4 minutes of hot water, there was much cheerful sharing of hair care advice, roadside restaurant recommendations, and spare quarters among the international intergenerational crowd.)
3. The hike along Annie Creek, referred to by Andrew (who discovered it early one morning while the rest of us snoozed in the tent) as the “Broken-Down Bridge Trail” on account of the several broken-down but still functional bridges.
4. The boat ride around the lake, where we got a new perspective on Ghost Ship Island:
and ourselves:
5. Ranger Ross’s fireside presentation, “Tricksters in Myth & Science,” a thoughtful combination of Native American legends and scientific facts about Coyotes, Ravens, and Fishers (Martens). We heard several stories new to us -- Coyote Steals Fire, Raven Brings Salmon, and a truly gruesome tale in which the Marten rips Lord Lao limb from limb and flings his body parts into the Lake one by one in order to trick his own children into eating him... before finally throwing in his head, which of course they immediately recognize, with horror.
The Marten or Fisher is no less disturbing in real life: apparently they are the only animal out there that hunts porcupines by choice, circling around and around them, avoiding their spiky tails, leaping in to inflict face wound after face wound until the porcupine is weakened enough to kill. Ranger Ross’s bloodthirsty glee as he described this process made us curious to know what kind of comics he draws in the off season (he told us this was his other passion). We also learned, to our delight, that coyotes have been known to carefully dig up buried traps, turn them over, still untripped -- and poop on them.
6. Our last evening, when we decided to get cleaned up and have a nice dinner at the Lodge. This elegant, delicious meal was well worth the expense -- even counting the fortune in quarters it took to make us presentable after three days of grubby camp life.
After devouring wild mushroom bruschetta, lamb chops, steak, pasta, hot dogs, and a somewhat contentious serving of cheesecake, we wandered out to the terrace, which overlooks the Lake. It was sunset. The Lake glowed silver, the mountains around it, pink. This has to be one of the most incredible views on the planet, we said to each other. “You said that about Yosemite!” Josie pointed out accusingly. “How many Most Beautiful Places on Earth can there be?” Certainly it's the most incredible view a person can enjoy while sitting in a rocking chair sipping a martini, with a bowl of clam chowder at the ready: we found evidence on the low terrace wall that some lucky soul had recently enjoyed this particular pleasure permutation.
A doe and her two fawns had come to enjoy an equivalent combination of delectables for their evening meal:
As we the light slowly faded, we watched our two fawns stalk them with the camera for a while. Then they turned to photographing each other.
1 comment:
Coyotes are hilarious!
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