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by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a
notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email. As this does not show the images of the
paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the
latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting
itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the
paintings at their best.)
The day dawned cloudy, but with the sun breaking
through occasionally, and so I broke camp and headed up the mountain to Crater
Lake. Although there was low cloud
spilling over the rim, the surface of the lake itself could be seen and much of the circumference was visible
much of the time. A snowy and different
world than my recent campsite 17 miles down the mountain. Being on the weekend there were visitors,
many snowshoeing or skiing off along the crater rim, but I saw none heading
with intent on the 33 mile circumference of the lake, as I saw no one packing
the necessary camping equipment for such a trek, but that is not to say that
there weren’t intrepid souls already out there … I expect there were. I’ve considered it myself, and perhaps that
may happen, before decrepitude sets in.
Crater Lake Snow
From the Visitors Center near the Lodge, I strolled
left (West) along the rim taking photographs, and thinking about Snow Painting
here at some future time; maybe when I Winter Camp here, but not today, as I’m
intent on spending time in the High Desert on this journey. But today was beautiful with another
accumulation of fresh snow since my brief scout of two days before, and being
able to see across the 5 mile expanse of the Lake. Even with the cloud cover, there were enough sunlight
and cloud breaks to give an indication of the wonderful deep blue of the water,
the deepest and cleanest in North America.
On a clear day in High Summer, the blue is so luscious you just want to
spoon it out and eat it!
Wizard Island
Wizard
Island, so named for its resemblance to a wizard’s hat, is a volcanic cone that
arose some years after the massive explosion that collapsed the peak of Mount Mazama, some 7700 years ago, and thus
forming the crater you see today. What
would it have been like to have been witness to such an event, as did forbears
of Native Americans whose stories have come down to us over the expanse of
years since?
The Bowl of Crater Lake
This photograph begins to give one a sense of the
crater itself. The rim stands between
700 and a thousand feet above the Lake’s surface, and is 5 miles across. But I had miles to go before I could sleep,
and I had to fill my three spare containers with 15 gallons of extra petrol,
before heading out to the into the High Desert, and so in the late afternoon,
east down the mountain I went, obtained the petrol, and refreshed some other
supplies in Klamath Falls, then steamed sedately off into the Oregon night to a
forest clearing I know about. It’s nice
to be building up a knowledge-base of forest road campsites, so that one can
arrive at them after the night has fallen; in territory I have not been in
before, I need to first discover them in daylight, but thereafter, anytime
night or day will suffice as they are then a known quantity. I found the intended site with no difficulty,
settling in for the night, even though it had been two years since I had last
been there, and only the once … and there was a hint of snow in the air.
