chicanes of the trail: crater lake

sometimes it felt like the trail deliberately threw things up to slow me down... the trail angels and trail magic in southern california; snow in the sierras; poison oak in northern california; huckleberries, blueberries, strawberries, thimbleberries, salmonberries of oregon and washington, and then sights like this - crater lake in the middle of oregon...



heaps of people had told me how amazing crater lake was, and so i was preparing myself for the possibility of building it up too much, but i was totally blown away when i saw it. i met ma and pa down in the village and spent a whole day travelling around the rim, which was amazing... the next day, when i hiked to it, i was trying to imagine it was just some little lake so i could have the awestruck feeling again, but i really didn't need to: you walk up to the rim from below, and all of a sudden this vivid azure water seems to strike you in the face. it's fabulous.






there's this island in the lake called wizard island, which is a small volcano which rose up in the lake. in the top of that is a small crater, which is what the whole lake is named for. the actual lake is a collapsed volcano (not a crater), called a caldera.








there were white butterflies everywhere, flitting about, and more truffula trees...









sadly you can see the one ufo has turned into an alien invasion - both an air strike and some kind of subterranean assault... think my camera is an early detection unit... (very clever to approach by air and underground; be a foolish end to a tactical mission to attack on land only to hit poison oak and realise years of careful planning had been foiled by america's diabolical homeland defence)





(i know the photo's on a crazy angle - but i was pretty stoked to catch the butterfly...)



















there were some butterflies which weren't white as well...

























this castley looking thing is a plug of lava (i think), which shot up into the air when the volcano was collapsing, and landed here... i think that's right...




the morning after seeing crater lake with ma and pa they dropped me back at the trailhead (ready to walk back to the lake) before they headed towards san fransisco to fly back home. bit sad to say goodbye - they are my favourite people in the world to hang out with, along with their other offspring...











the lake was even more spectacular the second day - the surface was incredibly still and the reflections were amazing...

i'll try to post more shots tomorrow - bit late now and i really want to go for a run in the morning...