High altitude hike

We had some cereal breakfast this morning before Mandy joined us at our site in the Mazama Campground. Once here, we all packed up and headed around the south side of Crater Lake to see some of its glass smooth water and cool features like Wizard Island and Phamtom Ship Rock. Our goal this morning was to hike up Mt. Scott to see the view from the highest point in the park. Although our breath was somewhat hard to catch on our way up we drank plenty of water and took enough breaks that we made it to the top without trouble. Not even smoke from a nearby fire could bring us down! We enjoyed a packed lunch underneath a fire lookout tower at the top and squinted throught the haze at Crater Lake below. Fortunately, on our way down the haze cleared for better photos and the somewhat less oxygenated air didn't effect us nearly as much. Once at the bottom we snapped a few more triumphant group photos and hit the road.

We stopped briefly at a waterfall where the girls washed a bit of trail grime off. Unfortunately we'll never know if the Asian family nearby will sell photos they took of the crazy Americans for profit. A little further down the road we went on an easy, forested loop hike to see a pumice lined canyon dramatically cut down by a nearby stream. It was a cool surprise before we wound down for the evening at our campsite. Mandy was in charge of dinner and we had foil-wrapped hobo dinners and banana boat dessert all over a fire I tended and nurtured with burly, bearded, forest man skill. After dinner and dessert we talked and took a quick look at Jupiter and four of its moons lined up lop-sided on one side of the gas giant planet through a spotting scope I brought along.

Comments (2) | To Top

8/2/2005 @ 8:02pm

Nice choice of pics for my wall paper.

by Sherry

8/9/2005 @ 12:47pm

Awesome vistas, Kev! The second picture of Crater Lake with the huge sky and popcorn clouds--felt like I was there. I agree with Sherry--you could totally frame that last one of the woodland sunset. Beautiful stuff. Also, lovin' the Fanta shirt, Sarah!

by Holly