Vacation at Crater Lake - Part 1

When planning this trip the Duchess kept asking “What are we going to do at Crater Lake for eight days?” “This is a National Forest – don’t they have hiking trails everywhere?” “Seriously! Do you think they have a gift shop?” “You know I don’t hike – don’t even ASK!” And on it went….

The Duchess does not hike. She considers any path that is not paved and level a hiking trail. Besides that, she was worried about the wildlife. Crater Lake is well known for the Black Bears and Cougars that roam freely into campgrounds and tourist areas. And then the Duke, silly man, told her that more pets die at Crater Lake each year than humans because they get too close to the edge. My poor Duchess. She was a borderline basket-case when we started out.

The drive was long but uneventful for me and Sir Bear. The Duke and Duchess, however, were in a state of anxiety because of something called a “check engine light” in the truck. No worries! The air conditioning was working fine!

When we finally reached our campground it turned out to be about 28 miles from Crater Lake. Very nice, all paved and level, a short “hike” to the Rogue River, and NO WILD ANIMALS! (Chipmunks, squirrels, a few small Lizards, a thousand mosquitoes, some yellow jackets and one scorpion-YIKES!) All was good.

For the next seven days, in record breaking heat, we got the Duchess to go hiking EVERY day! Nope, I’m not kidding. And she was a real trooper. It is amazing what that woman will go through to get a photograph! Who knew?

There are too many pictures for one post so I will save some for next time. Hope you enjoy them!


In my previous post I showed you two pictures of Crater Lake. The first one shows Wizard Island and the second one shows Phantom Ship. The following picture explains about Phantom ship, if you are interested. Just click on it to enlarge so you can read it.




This picture, when enlarged, shows the "observation room" that people can go into to look out over the lake. The Duke went in - the Duchess, being terrified of heights, stayed as far away as possible using the excuse that she had to take care of me and Bear! She wouldn't let us anywhere near the edge at any time. There are no fences, just sandy cliffs that go almost straight down. It was very scary!

Also in Crater Lake National Park is The Pinnacles.

A very strange sight indeed. This tells about them.

And here are just a few of them. They are enormous.

We saw scenes like this one almost everywhere we hiked.

And I found out that I like water when I can play in it!!!

It was so fun to climb on the rocks.

This place is called "The Boulders", I wonder why?

We hiked a long trail to see these big rocks on the river.

There were lot's of them.

Did I mention that I like water now?

Burrrrrrr, it was really cold, but fun!

Sir Bear found out that he liked it too!

He wasn't to thrilled about the rocks though.

We saw a lot of this.

And I got a bit of agility practice in while hiking through the forest.

This one I had to have some help with.

It was WAY up there. Too high for me to reach.

This sign tells about the Rogue River.

That's the river I played in every day.

This is more of the river. It was truly beautiful.

The Caves were really neat, but we had to look at them from a bridge.

It had a really good railing for the Duchess to hold on to!

Here is one of the caves.

Tomorrow or the next day I will post some more pictures for you.

There must be more of me somewhere in all those files!!!