Tuesday, September 17, 2013, Crater Lake National Park, OR

It was cloudy, but we decided to chance it and drove from Sutherlin, OR, to Crater Lake National Park. It was a pretty drive with good roads and very little traffic, but as we gained altitude it got more and more foggy. We passed Diamond Lake on Oregon Highway 138 and stopped for a few minutes at an overlook. Even with the fog, it was a beautiful view - we will have to explore Diamond Lake one day in the future. 

A few miles inside the north entrance to the National Park, the landscape opens up and you are in the middle of the Pumice Desert. Quite a change from the thick forests of the previous hundred miles.

Pumice and ash is more than 200 feet deep in some places.

Sometimes the fog was so thick, we couldn't see more than a few hundred feet from the car. A few times the road fell away on each side leaving us with the illusion we were lost in the clouds. At one point the fog thinned out a bit, so I pulled over along the road thinking we might get a glimpse of the lake. We did, but it was cold - Joani quickly got back into the car. I walked a bit further around the bend and saw Wizard Island. As I went back to get Joani, a strong wind cleared the fog for us and we were able to get some really nice pictures of the lake.

A tiny ray of sun broke through and shown on the cove of the island. It gave us a glimpse of the amazing blue that you can see on a clear day.

While we were at the Crater Lake Rim Village, the temperature dropped 20 degrees in a few minutes. The fog blew in thicker than ever and it started sleeting! We continued down the mountains to the main visitor's center where I got my National Park Passport book stamped. We watched the new movie about the park and we studied the map as the sleet turned to rain. At the desk, we asked the ranger about the weather forecast. He looked familiar and we realized he was in the movie we just watched. He said the Pinnacles might be good to visit in the rain. On the way, we passed Vidae Falls and had the picnic lunch we had packed.

By the time we reached the Pinnacles Overlook we were below the fog and we even got to see a little sunshine. I think we were pretty lucky to get such an opportunity to view these strange and intriguing natural wonders.

You can see our car in the center top of the picture for a little scale.

Heading for home took us up the mountain again where we saw, through the fog, how much sleet had accumulated.

On the way back to Sutherlin, we stopped for a few more photo opportunities before calling it a day.

The Tioga Foot Bridge was built in 2012.

The late afternoon sun was amazing on the rolling hills.