Ready to head to Crater Lake - our last look for a while at the Oregon Coast.
An interesting spot alongside the road - two things of significance, at least to me: Note shaft strut adjacent rudder, to give her shallow draft, a good thing for a bar crosser; and of course the "W" on the stack, Wrigglesworth lines; a proud local line, well thought of.
Low tide, beach stroll, dry feet goal.
The Rock that must be climbed.......
For a view spot, it's always location, location, location....
No thongs........... just heavy full wet suits, cold water!!!
So we decided to get to Crater Lake via Jerry's Flat Road.... should have called it Jerry's Flat and STRAIGHT Road... lol Ole Jerry had a sense of humor, from sea level to a bit north of 6,000 feet, a switchback or two ahead...
A little landslide... at least it did not take out the road... they had just cleaned it up.
Bald Eagle flying overhead.
Looking back at where the landslide happened.
Now this one took out the whole road. Quite a delay period here, as they have to make a ramp after each load of fill to allow a group of vehicles through. Not many vehicles either way, so they're sorta nonchalant about having you wait, and wait....
Lots of rocks alongside the road, this one is a bit larger than most, but no problem...
Now this one is a bit more of a problem, but easy go-around.... A little bit before this some one had collected a rock to their oil pan... you could see the impact spot and then the trail of oil leaking off to the side of the road.. very long walk for that poor soul, no cell phone reception out here. Not a good place to be on foot, unless you have lots of time....
Beautiful breath taking views.
Opps... I guess some where the name changed from Jerry's Flat Road to Bear Camp Coastal Route... John "lecturing" me on how he is going to make sure he looks at the map before he starts driving down the road... "Another fine mess you have gotten us into, Ollie!"
At last civilization...
Gorge on the Rogue River - this is a typical view from a pullout spot, long vertical drop. Very few guardrails on the trip, none where this shot was taken.
Yup, I have seen that smile before... the gears are turning, he is going to do something that we would yell at the kids for doing.
Chucking rocks into the gorge... long ways down. Kids...
The picture taking stopped... it was getting late in the afternoon and we still had much driving to do to get to Crater Lake.
We stopped and checked out a US Forestry Department tent site but it was VERY remote and scenes of the movie Deliverance went though our heads so we kept on pushing.
Arrived at Crater Lake at 9 PM... the first camp ground was closed for the season and the lodge was full with no vacancies... had to drive to the Lost Creek Camp Ground. Another 40 min around part of the rim of the crater... it is very dark. We pulled over to let a car go by us (the only one we had seen in quite some time). A young lady stopped and told us she was lost and would we know where Lost Creek was. We told her to follow us. When we got there, the camp ground was full so we set up next to the bathrooms and used the bear proof trash and recyclable box to store our food..
It was a very cold, uncomfortable night... too hot in the sleeping bag and your face is freezing. We both had wool hats on. I started to feel anxious and had chest pains... when we got up the next morning I looked at the topo map and realized we were between 6000 and 7000 feet....
I am an old sea dog... as a kid I thought that the mountains would be where I lived... but my true love is the ocean and sea.
Louise
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