Our day started in Bend, Oregon. What a cool little up-and-coming artsy town! Breakfast at the Mill Inn was WONDERFUL! (Seeing as we’re eating lots of PB&J sandwiches while touring, a multi-course, hot meal was a welcome change!) We then drove out to Pilot Butte, a dormant volcano within city limits. Did you know that Bend is one of only three towns that has a volcano officially in it? The other two are in Portland and Hawaii. Alas, it would have been a great lookout, but it was closed.
Then, it was off to the Cascade Lakes scenic byway. Despite “road closed” signs, we snaked our way around a few business parks to make it on the hwy, that was in fact, NOT closed =) The 50+ mile detour brought us past no less than 10 pristine lakes. The water was so flat you could see perfect reflections of snow-capped mountains in them. The air was so fresh and crisp. The forest was so quiet, you could hear the birds and the trickle of water. Every lake we pulled into had a handful of campers and fishermen on paddle boats. The serenity and beauty of these hidden gems was truly breathtaking. It’s going to be awfully hard to go back to NC =(
After meandering past the lakes, we arrived at Crater Lake NP. Wow! We pulled up to our first overlook and had to scramble up snowbanks so tall, that rangers had cut stairs into them. Standing on the rim, we were at elevation 7,000 feet. The water was such a deep shade of blue. For a park that is only accessible 3 months of the year (they get 40+ feet of snow there annually), it was surprisingly not crowded. We drove around Rim Drive until we reached Cleetwood Cove. From there, we descended 700 feet over the course of 1 mile (hiking poles to the rescue!) to reach the boathouse on the lake. Unfortunately all the boat tours for the day were sold out, but we enjoyed the different perspective from down below. We heard you could swim in the lake; we thought it’d be cool to claim you swam in one of the deepest lakes in the world (7th, in case you’re wondering; formed by a volcano that collapsed thousands of years ago). As it turns out, there is a rock outcropping about 20 feet about the water that you can JUMP off of into the crystal blue 45-degree water. This was an opportunity not to be missed, and thankfully, we were wearing quick-dry hiking gear. The pictures of us in free-fall are pretty cool, no?
Lastly, we drove out to the Pinnacles, which are these 100-foot spires that stick out of the earth, formed by hardened steam vents when the Volcano was erupting. Very cool! Afterwards, we headed west, back to spend the night in Medford, OR to rest up for our next part of this adventure. Stay tuned!
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