Crater Lake: the Windiad no. 5

The Oregon road trip is over and I’m soooo behind on writing about it. There was Crater Lake, meeting friends in Eugene, partying in Portland, driving down the Oregon coast, and today, hiking around the redwood forests. Tomorrow we head back to my parents’ place. I’ll start filling in the blanks and dating them backwards.

Scylla and Charybdis
At one point during Odysseus’s journey back they had to pass a narrow strait. On each side were two creatures, Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla was a six-headed monster that plucked sailors from their ships. Charybdis was just a big belching mouth that sucked in and gurgled up water creating a big whirlpool that sunk ships. You could try to sail through the middle but only the Argonauts (a group of demi-gods, heroes, and expert navigators) had achieved that feat.

Odysseus’s men were a collection of conscripted goatherds, winemakers, and aimless teenagers, so Odysseus didn’t have any faith in their boating skills. So he opted to sail nearer Scylla and sacrifice 6 men rather than risk sinking the whole ship near Charybdis. When the ship neared Scylla, Odysseus mumbled something about some paperwork he had to do in his quarters and went beneath deck, leaving his men to face the creature.

Crater Lake
We avoided any Scyllas on this road trip. Thank goodness for that because there are only two of us to sacrifice. We would have had to pick up a few hitchhikers to make the numbers work.

We did take our chances with a big body of whirling water however. And that would be Crater Lake, probably the world’s purest water and deepest lake. Located in southern Oregon, the lake is in a caldera caused by a massive volcanic eruption. It was one of the biggest explosions in earth’s history. The result is a lake that is formed only from snowmelt and rain. It’s also the bluest water I have ever seen.

For years, I told T that I would take her there and we would go on the boat tour inside the lake to an island that is another volcano within the volcano. But because of possible bad weather the boats weren’t operating that day. Darn! We hiked down from the rim to the water anyway just to look at how clear and blue the water was.

It’s a massive lake. You can’t capture how big the lake is from driving around the rim because you’re so far up from the shore. The rocks that jut out from the lake seem small, but once on the water on the boat, you realize that they are proper islands with ancient trees. The tickets for the boat tours are limited and only the first boat of the day allows you to stop off at Wizard Island (the volcano within a volcano). I highly recommend hiking around on the island, and if you dare, swim in the icy water.