On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Tonight we have our first submission to Parks After Dark! Looking at these photos just now, I felt myself take my first deep breath in days. We’re not in the calm before the storm; for me, it’s more that the beautiful pictures and stories are the calm within the storm.
If you feel the same way, and you are interested in continuing On the Road After Dark, it’s time to send in your submissions in for Parks After Dark, and start sending Fall Colors and New Orleans.
randy khan
These photos are from the first part of a trip my wife and I took to Oregon in June 2017. The trip was inspired by an article my wife saw about scenic roads, something we did at the end. But when we first started thinking about it, we booked the one night available at the on-site lodge at Crater Lake, which happened to be the summer solstice, so that was our first destination.
We saw a lot of other things on this trip, but Crater Lake really started it off with a bang. It’s a fascinating geological phenomenon – no streams feed into the lake, so it’s filled entirely with rainwater and snow melt, and it maintains its level because somewhere – they don’t know where – there is an outlet where water flows out. It’s some of the purest water in the world, so it’s incredibly clear and also reflects extremely well. To keep it pure, there’s no swimming and only an extremely limited amount of boat traffic. And it’s big.
This is a view from the vicinity of the lodge. What you see in the water is a reflection of the clouds.
I have no good photos of the lodge, but it’s a classic National Park hotel. The rooms are small and kind of antiquated – no phones (although there was a pay phone) – but comfortable enough. They did have wifi, though.
There was still a lot of snow at the park on June 21; in fact, the north entrance to the park didn’t open until we left on the 22nd. To give you an idea, there’s a photo of me outside the lodge with about 8 feet of snow behind me, and this was hardly the only place with that much snow still on the ground.
This is Wizard Island. If you get to Crater Lake at the right time of year, there’s a boat that will take you there. The island is a remnant of the cone of the original volcano. Essentially what happened was that most of the top of the volcano collapsed to form the crater somewhere around 5600 BCE, the crater then got filled with water over several thousand years.
This is looking towards the east side of the lake. The reflections are just incredible.
This is looking towards the north part of the lake from the lodge around sunset. The water looks much different as the light is fading.
In the morning, we decided to drive along the rim to see how far they’d let us go towards the north exit, stopping along the way. This photo is probably a half mile from the lodge.
Much to our surprise, the road was open all the way – they’d opened the north entrance that morning. But “open” was a relative term because they were still working to make it usable in both directions, and so they were alternating use of a single lane for several miles of the route. We drove up the road in a little caravan, with park vehicles at the front and back and maybe 15 cars in the middle.
Once we were liberated from the caravan, we pulled off the road and walked towards the rim, which is where this photo and the next one come from. This shows the other side of Wizard Island and a lot of the east side of the lake. You really can see how much snow there is (and there was snow under our feet where I took the photo).
One last photo, from the same general spot as the last one, but looking north. The blue in the water is reflecting an intensely blue sky above. It was just beautiful, and a lovely view to end the first part of the trip.
Uncle Cosmo
Once upon a time on vacation I went looking for Judge Crater Lake, but I couldn’t find it. Then again, neither could anyone else… :^p
JanieM
Sunsets and reflections — two of my favorite things to take pictures of.
Also, thanks for the education — I didn’t know that Crater Lake had no inlets and a hidden (from us) outlet. Pretty cool!
Kent
Yes, it snows a LOT there. It’s basically the biggest mountain in OR with the top chopped off.
The real adventure way to see Crater Lake is to circumnavigate it via cross country skis in the winter. I did that long ago with my dad when I was in HS.
Miss Bianca
Wow. Just stunning photos. Very soothing. Will have to make it to Crater Lake one of these fine days, in the After Times, inshallah.
ETA: @Kent: OK, *that* sounds like the way to go – but I would have to brush up on my nordic skiing down here in CO! Fortunately, that’s not too hard to arrange!
West of the Rockies
Lovely photographs! Did you encounter lots of very confident chipmunks? I also recall lots of alkali flies.
Lapassionara
These are beautiful photos. Many thanks for sharing.
Alison Rose
Ah, this brings back wonderful memories. The last vacation we took with the whole family–parents, me, and my two brothers, before my oldest brother moved out–was a drive up from where we lived in Marin County to Crater Lake, stopping at a few other places on the way home. But the lake was the best part of the trip, and even so many years later (I think we went in………..1994?) I have such a clear image in my head, which is exactly what you have in these pictures. It’s a stunning sight in person!
?BillinGlendaleCA
Good shots, I’ve always wanted to stop there when my family traveled up north, but we never did.
enplaned
The variety of natural beauty in the US is mindboggling. I’ve seen a lot of it and Crater Lake would rank among the top of the lot. Worth making a special trip. It’s the remains of Mt Mazama, what happens when you get a catastrophic eruption.
For a similar concept on a much, much larger scale, visit Lake Taupo in the center of New Zealand’s North Island. Imagine a Crater Lake that, at its widest, is 21 miles, and which at its longest, is 29 miles. Same basic concept – formed by a massive eruption – one far far larger than created Crater Lake. Vulcanism is cool.
Benw
Just lovely, amazing images!
There’s also a lovely song by Liz Phair called Crater Lake. I can’t find it on youtube so here’s May Queen because holy shit Liz Phair rocks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXxYr1566A4
randy khan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I would love to see what you would do with photos of Crater Lake.
Scout211
I love Crater Lake. It definitely is beautiful when there is snow on the ground. The last time we visited the park, it was mid-October and most of the services were closed but you could walk through the snow around the rim. We’ve been there often, but never when the park was almost empty of tourists and only that one time with snow on the ground. It was awesome.
Beautiful photos.
Jay
@enplaned:
Live long and prosper. ?
The Dangerman
I’ve taken a few good to, ok, really good pics in my life, but one of my best is at Crater Lake. I’ll see if I can link it in a second.
Amazing place. A definite Thin place (it’s a Celtic thing). Only a few places I’ve been like that … Yosemite Valley … Moraine Lake … a must visit.
One time I was flying back to Seattle from CA on a perfect day and the pilot was either retiring or was ahead of schedule and he did a sweeping left turn 360 around the lake. I can’t recall any other time something like that happened in a plane.
ETA: Can’t figure out the linking thing tonight. Another time.
Mary G
It’s so good to stop being glued to the madness and remember all the calm beauty that is still out there twice a day. Thanks, randy khan and all the travelling Juicers that share with us.
randy khan
By the way, the rest of the trip was:
Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, with dinner at a really nice French restaurant
Drive north along the coast, with stops at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area (they’re up to 500 feet tall and go on for 40 miles) and Coos Bay.
Portland for a few days (including the Japanese garden and the rose garden)
A day driving along the Columbia River Scenic Byway
And we saw a huge number of places that are on the National Register of Historic Places, maybe half of them entirely by accident. Also, the trees are really impressive.
ballerat
It’s a beautiful lake. The blue of the water is really hard to reproduce. On clear summer days it is an incredibly intense blue. Never been there in winter; maybe it’s crazy blue then too.
The clarity and depth of the water has something to do with the light refracting ability. It’s almost 2,000 feet deep, and a secchi disc can be seen at 100 feet down.
Google says the record clarity was in August 1994 at 134 feet, a month after my last hike there. I sat with my easel near the rim, failing to find a blue among my paints that was that intense, that strong a blue. I used what was close, then when I was back home I thought what I painted looked fake. Too intense blue. But it wasn’t even close. The Kodachrome pix I took were even less faithful.
WaterGirl
@The Dangerman: That must be a sign that you should send that in as an On the Road post instead of linking it here. :-)
WaterGirl
@randy khan: Thanks so much for starting us out with such a lovely set of photos.
WaterGirl
I will take a second to mention here that all the Parks After Dark posts have their own tag, in case anyone wants to go back and look through the collection for some peace and quiet during these rocky times.
The same will be true for Fall Colors and for New Orleans. It’s also true for Paris After Dark and for Chile.
All you have to do is click on “Parks After Dark” just under the title on any one of the posts, and you will be taken to all of them.
Poe Larity
Should be on everyones bucket list. Park was burning when I was there, had to hike back out at night to the parking lot as there are only two ways out. Still worth it.
Auntie Anne
Thank you for these lovely, soothing pictures.
chrisanthemama
About 20 years ago, I swam in Crater Lake. The boat-tour let us off on Wizard Island (for us to be picked up and returned to the dock by the next boat) and we had about an hour to explore. That is the coldest, purest water I’ve ever swum in–either heart-stoppingly, or heart-startingly cold. BUT COLD. In August.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@randy khan: Thanks, probably too far away and too expensive to ever get to at this point.
Alison Rose
@randy khan: I’m SO BUMMED that I never made it to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Was it as amazing as I imagine it to be?
If not, don’t tell me, just lie :P
SFBayAreaGal
I used to go to Crater Lake every year when my grandparents lived in Ashland, Oregon. The drive from Ashland to Crater Lake is beautiful.
I caught the boat ride. It takes you to Wizard Island and around the lake. The trail zig zags its way down to the boat ride and lake. Easy going down, not so easy going back up. I believe that is the only way down to the lake.
CaseyL
Lovely place, lovely photos! I really need to get out there; been meaning to for years.
@enplaned:
We are really incredibly fortunate to live in a continent-spanning country (esp. now when hardly any other countries will admit USians): just about every biome, climate, and geographical feature there is can be found somewhere right here at home.
Kent
I last went in HS like pretty much every other AP English student growing up in Oregon. It was amazing and great back then, which would have been spring 1982. Saw a traditional play in the historic replica theater and a modern one in the open air ampitheater.
I keep planning to pack up the kids and take them in the summer but stuff just keeps getting in the way.
SFBayAreaGal
Thank you Randy for the pictures. Brings back great memories. The blues in the lake and the reflections are breath taking. I hope to get back to Crater Lake one day.
SFBayAreaGal
@Alison Rose: Yes it is amazing. Watching Shakespeare under the stars. Nothing like it. Well seeing Shakespeare at the Globe Theater in London comes in pretty close.
TheOtherHank
I’ve gone swimming in Crater Lake. There’s a turn out on the road and you can hike down a trail to where the boat rides leave. When we were there 10 or so years ago, swimming was permitted. I can corroborate that water is super cold.
VeniceRiley
Crater Lake is my first 30,000ft memory for my very first plane flight in… 1974? ona long journey to Isfahan. So obviously pterry even at altitude. Lovely shots!
And yeah, there is money left on the table at National Park accomodations. Very basic.
Tim Wayne
We went to Crater Lake on the way back from Madras where we watched the total eclipse. Crater Lake was magnificent, but it there were a lot of fires at the time so we couldn’t see the far end of it. And my photos are all shit except for the ones I took of the dogs.
Jerzy Russian
We camped there on July 4 some number of years ago. There was still a lot of snow by the lodge. Unfortunately the mosquitos were very bad, as bad as I can remember seeing them anywhere. The shops there were out of bug spray and netting.
We walked down to the boat launching area, and the water was super cold. Painfully cold in fact.
Mike in NC
We visited Lake Tahoe five years ago and thought it was one of the most spectacular natural places in the entire world.
BigJimSlade
@randy khan:
I love that this place is so new! It has filled with water over several thousand years, but 5600 BCE is NOTHING geologically. This place is brand-spanking-new! I was there in my mid-single digits, and still have vague, wowed memories…
frosty
Nice pics, especially the ones with the snow. I went to Crater Lake in the 70s – I didn’t see much, just drove the rim on my way north. My wife was there in 2015, and all her pictures are obscured by the smoke from forest fires in Washington that year. It’s on our list to return to.
Grover Gardner
We live in the Rogue Valley and *always* take visitors to Crater Lake. The photos only hint at its extraordinary beauty. We never get tired of visiting. Every season, every time of day makes it a different experience.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: I am quite proud of the fact that we have a rain forest in Washington that I do believe also includes the western half of Vancouver Island. I would have to research and I am way too lazy to do so right now. I’m sure Jay will have input here.
BigJimSlade
@?BillinGlendaleCA: My uncle lives in Salem, OR. He would take the train to visit relatives in CA. If the train runs through Medford, you could rent a car from there… Obviously this would take days (only trying to mention options, I know life circumstances don’t always allow for all the options).
Funny thing about my uncle, he raised a family of six children working for the state government. And derided taxes and government, “I know how much money they waste.” Like corporations don’t waste anything or are as remotely responsible to everybody else. He also took the train because he liked to keep a pocket knife on him in case he wanted to do something like peel an apple, and they won’t let you take that onto planes… sigh.
West of the Rockies
@Jerzy Russian:
I mentioned alkali flies earlier, but I think I meant mosquitoes. I mixed up a memory of Mono Lake. But Crater Lake was lousy with chipmunks. I had a pet chipmunk when I was a boy.
StringOnAStick
Crater lake is my first complete “wow I love the outdoors” moment. I was 5 years old and tried to crawl up on top of the viewing wall so I could see down to the lake, completely freaking out the inattentive adults. I recall being upset that no one was as thrilled as I was by everything about the entire park; I wanted to never leave.
randy khan
@West of the Rockies:
I don’t recall any chipmunks. And definitely no annoying insects. Even though it was officially summer, it was very early in the season.
Jay
@Yutsano:
the West Coast Rainforest starts in NorCal and runs all the way up to The Alaskan Panhandle. Only 5% of the Old Growth remains.
randy khan
@Alison Rose:
@Kent:
We really enjoyed our (brief) time there. We saw The Merry Wives of Windsor in the big outdoor theater, and it was a fine performance, although the play itself is much more an entertainment than a deep masterwork. (In one of those funny quirks of life, Falstaff was played by a woman, and the only other time we saw Merry Wives – literally decades before that – Falstaff also played by a woman.)
And the town is nice, with some interesting shops and good restaurants.
We’d really love to go back some day, both to Ashland for more Shakespeare and to Oregon in general.
Richard
That looks like another one of those Xanterra properties. They also hold the concession on Zion, Glacier, Furnace Creek, and a hand at South Rim. Also some other places that I’m not familiar with..
It really is beautiful place . But they specialize in crowding a bunch of young people into dormitories and paying them the absolute minimum wage and deducting rent. They use their license to hire other young people from over seas.
So that was good to meet them. I met a few people. Work Study they called it.
So when you visit these places, be kind to those young people. There were kids from Turkey, Romania, Taiwan, and other places.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: I think circumstances will keep me in Southern CA for the duration. I’ve pretty much given up any idea of travel.
Origuy
I stopped at Crater Lake in 2005 on the way back from Bend. I didn’t have much time to explore, but it was an unforgettable sight. Nearby there’s a place where the Rogue River goes underground; that was pretty cool to see. I stayed overnight near Ashland and saw Richard III there.
Origuy
@BigJimSlade: I took the Amtrak Coast Starlight once. It stops in Klamath Falls, not Medford. Northbound, that’s where you start to get into the Cascades.
Betty
@enplaned: Volcanism is cool if you are not living in the midst of active volcanoes. Dominica has nine on an island of 300 square miles, one of which is expected to erupt some time within a hundred years.