Crater Lake National Park

June 20, 2018

As we were approaching Craters of the Moon NP, The truck decided it was time to change the oil.  It always seems to happen at the most inconvenient time, like in the wilds of Idaho. At least we had a reasonable cell signal so we could call around and find the nearest Ford dealer that could do the job within our time frame.  That happened to be Twin Falls, 90 miles from Craters.  As we were entering town the view of the below gorge caught us by surprise.  The Snake river winds it's way through southern Idaho.  In  some places the river bank is just a few feet above the water level.  In others it carves these impressive gorges.  There's a lot of features in Southern Idaho we need to come back and explore.

We spent the day in Twin Falls taking care of lifes necessities like laundry, food, haircut and of course the oil change.  Our destination this evening was another Wal-Mart, in Jerome, ID.

Since leaving southeastern Arizona we'd been dry camping, no electric or water hookups.  Our next destination was the small town of  Homedale, ID, just east of the Oregon state line.  They have a little city campground right on the Snake river with nice grassy sites, water and electric hookups for $15 a night.  Oh, by the way, they also had a bath house with LOTS of hot water!  We spent a couple days at Homedale just relaxing.

We had one more intermediate stop before reaching Crater Lake NP, Chickahominy Reservoir, a BLM site in a desolate area of central Oregon.  When we arrived it was a cold and windy overcast afternoon, we didn't even unhook from the truck.  Taking a picture of the campsite just didn't come to mind.

On the road to Chickahominy Reservoir.

Our destination was Diamond Lake Campground.  It was recommended to us as a good base for visiting Crater Lake National Park. This is where it really hit us that we weren't in an arid zone any more.  There were large pines and green bushes everywhere.

Diamond Lake campground site A22.  A bit slopey but we made it work.

The forecast was for rain in the afternoon of the next day, so we headed into the park to get some afternoon views.  The glassy water and clouds made for some interesting pictures.

Wizard island, the volcano within a volcano.

We wanted to spend more time in the park this afternoon so we decided to have dinner at the Crater Lake Lodge.

Joan (lower left) observing distant objects across the lake while waiting for our dinner reservation.

The next day started clear but building clouds foretold of the coming rain.

Vidae Falls

Phantom Ship

On the trail to Plaikni Falls.

Plaikini Falls

The Pinnacles.

More information on the formation of Crater Lake here.

This guy's been feed before!  But ain't he cute!

Even the Chipmunks enjoy the view. 

Coming next, On toward the Oregon coast.