Road Trip Ten Crater Lake

Ron to Wayne-  "Do you reckon that's safe?"

     The eighty-odd mile drive from Medford to Crater Lake took a bit less than two hours and transported us from early springtime back into mid-winter.  As we climbed the last few miles to the 8,000 foot summit, large soft snowflakes drifted down.  The snow stopped by the time we parked at the visitor’s center but the parking lot was recessed because snow banks surrounding it were at least twenty feet high.  We learned that it snows about forty-four feet (feet, not inches) per year at Crater Lake.  It is advertised as the snowiest continuously occupied place in the world.  At 1943 feet deep, the lake is the deepest in the United States and among the top ten worldwide.   It is fed entirely by snowmelt.  Snowplows start here at four am most everyday for about ten months of the year. 

     The entrance to the visitor’s center appeared to be a double door, with a porch roof, into a twenty-five foot high wall of snow.  We entered and walked about seventy-five feet thru a tunnel-like corridor under the snow to the building proper.  Even though the whole thing was buried in a snowdrift, everything inside the building was as it should be.  The architectural style was 1990’s General Services Administration, National Park Gift Shop with Snack Bar Ensemble.  All rough hewn faux beams , rough sawn plywood siding stained dark walnut, aluminum windows, track lights and endless display cases of turquoise jewelry, gimmie caps, tee shirts and coffee cups.   Everything was logoed for Crater Lake.  I expect the silver and turquoise came from a pueblo outside Beijing, along with most everything else. 

      Snow was banked half-way up most of the windows, even though we were on the second floor.  At the snack bar, we paid nine dollars for a pre-packaged ham and cheese sandwich and then climbed the stairs to the third floor for lunch and our first view of Crater Lake.  Words fail me.  If you take an ole boy from the High Plains of Texas, put him in front of a picture window looking out at a magnificent, placid, deep blue lake in the crater of a long-extinct volcano and ask him for his impressions, don’t be surprised if he stutters.  I will never forget it.

     Outside, we walked about two hundred yards across the paved parking area to the “original” lodge.  It was built by a developer in 1915 and sporadically remodeled during the ensuing years until 1967, when it was acquired by the National Park Service.  In 1991 we, with the help of our government, spent $15 million renovating the property.  The great hall and dining room were dismantled and re-assembled over a new steel framework and two wings with state of the art guest rooms were added.   The structure is magnificent—unlike the visitor’s center, there is nothing faux about it.  The stone fireplace in the great room, a replica of the original, would hold a sofa if firewood ran low.  We had our picture taken there.



Road Trippers in the "Old" Lodge



      Outside, we climbed the snowbank for another look at the lake.  A couple of dozen tourists were clustered at the top, enjoying the unbelievable view.  Wizard Island was off to our left.   Six miles in the distance, the far shore was clearly visible.  Our vantage point was about two thousand feet above the lake and we could easily see the entire panorama.  It was so quiet we could hear normal conversations taking place several hundred feet away.  No one had any trouble hearing us. 

     A cute young girl, somewhat less than forty, said, “Are you fellas from Texas?”   One of us answered, “Why, yes m’am.  How could you tell?”

     The girl’s big brown eyes twinkled, and she said, “I spent some time there once, and I recognized the accent.  Have you ever heard of a place called Hereford, in the panhandle?”

     “Oh, all of us grew up in Lubbock, only about an hour’s drive from Hereford.  What on earth were you doing there?”   Wayne asked.

     The girl’s companion, obviously a boyfriend, was quietly watching, but not entering into the conversation.  I sensed that was not unusual---I had decided he was either very intelligent, or very rich, or possibly both.  She was attractive and outgoing, but he was very quiet and remarkably ugly.   He had bushy black eyebrows over close set, beady little eyes, heavy black stubble and a receding chin.  These features surrounded a beak that took the place of and vaguely resembled a nose.  Since neither of them wore any rings, I suspected this was some kind of weekend affair.  He must have been very wealthy.

     “I’m a dietician.” She said.  “I was twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, working on my first real job.  They sent me to Texas, to a company called “Arrowhead Mills” to learn about organic food.  It was headquartered in Hereford.  I was there over a week--talk about culture shock.  It seemed like forever!”

     “A guy named Frank Ford used to run that company.  His brother, Davis, was in our high school class.  Did you meet Frank?”  I asked.

     “Yes, I remember him, a tall guy from Texas A and M.  They were all really nice people, but it has been a long time.  I was a wide-eyed vegan and I asked if there was a vegetarian restaurant in town.  The foreman, a tall, cowboy-type thought a while, then brightened.  He said, ‘Sure!  They’s a KFC right down here on Main Street.’”

     We laughed and separated.  Later, as we walked back to our car, we saw the cute little dietitian and her boyfriend, tentatively kissing each other as they stood above us, on top of the snowbank.  Wayne, who needs to talk about most everything, shouted, “Hey, do you all know each other well enough to be doing that, right out here in front of God and everybody?”

     The little dietitian didn’t miss a beat—she leaned back and said, “Can you believe the nerve of this guy?  I never saw him before in my life!”  Then she enthusiastically went back to kissing him.   Boy, there’s no telling how much money that guy had!   



Crater Lake--Wizard Island on the left.  Far side is six miles away.