Gorilla status (knuckles dragging on the ground)... We finally make it the he'll out of Lassen. I was not expecting to just go ahead and do 9 miles of backpacking starting a 5,000ft in elevation. Which btw I found out I'm crazy sensitive to elevations at about 6,000 and above. I get really asthma-ie and winded easily.
We found a service road right outside of Crater Lake to camp out at. It was perfect because there was a clearing so the night sky viewing would be perfect. The only downside is that in the morning the road sounded like the "Ice Road Truckers" route through Sturges, SD in Aug. Jesus you'd think that honking your horns and slamming on the gas at 6am is a little uncalled for. I have a feeling it was a logging road that 1,000 trucks went past to get to the hwy. So not a sounded sleep. boo
Once we got to Crater Lake we finally parked and piled out to see this Massive Lake. Did you know Crater is the cleanest water in the world?!?!! AND is the deepest lake in the US?!?!? Right? Crazy! So, we took the standard pictures and poses and then walked the rim of the Crater for about 20 min. There was an article in "VIA" magazine that featured Crater Lake in the Aug issue. I stole it from Mony (my Mom) and read the article about what I can expect when I get there. They had mentioned that on the deck of the Crater Lake Lodge there there are ranger talks three times a-day in the wicker rocking chairs while looking out on The Lake. It was pretty amazing. Of course I grabbed some Sierra Nevada Beers and some strawberries we picked up along the road. It was about 5:00pm so the next step was to look for a camping spot for the night.
North of Crater Lake about 50 miles we found another service road. The nice thing about about Oregon is that you can camp anywhere, I mean ANYWHERE as long as your car is not parked on habitat a.k.a grass, open fire as long as there is a fire ring and 3 ft of brush cleared. I almost peeded! I was like WHA!!! This state is pretty amazing. So we found this awesome little camping spot next to a creek in a very jungle like environment, minus the Malaria and monkeys.
I woke up early about 8am and then decided that it's been 4 days since I took a shower that I was going to bathe in the creek. I strolled over to the creek and mentally prepared that this f'n river is going to be flipp'n freezing. So, I just got in waist deep and bent over to get my hair wet. OMG! I was shaking and shivering uncontrollably I've never been in water that cold before. But I did it washed my hair and body and then stumbled over to our camp site and started a fire. The boys finally woke up by the fire and saw me shivering. Once they woke up they decided to take a creek wash too. All I could hear are yelps from the site once they got it. It was quite funny.
Next stop Olympic National Park...
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