Heading Up - a photo on Flickriver

Heading Up

Crater Lake National Park
Follow Us On Instagram Now!
@
instagram.com/maksim_photography/

Crater Lake, the one National Park I always dreamt about from a young age, and I was about to finally make it there. Crater Lake is one of the furthest National Parks in the lower 48 from my hometown of Pittsburgh, I always kind of looked at Oregon and Pennsylvania being the opposite side of the coasts counterparts. After the nearly month long trip though I would be there and finally get to experience those blue waters for the first time.
We left Lassen National Park in Northern California and headed even further North, along the way we past the beautiful Mt. Shasta which was totally blanketed in snow cover, a real amazing view. Soon enough we'd be traveling across the Oregon border for the first time. I finally made it to Oregon! The next stop of course was the elusive Crater Lake. Before arriving we had no hotel reservations (like always) no idea where we were heading, no idea where we'd eat and so on. Crater Lake was coming up fast and finally we saw a sign welcoming us to the park, we finally made it. Stopped in the gift shop/restaurant for lunch and studied the park map like we were getting ready for an SAT in a few hours. Once we left, we drove up a steep windy hill obviously taking us to the "Rim" of the lake. At the top we were surprised to see how much snow was there, us East Coasters aren't use to all that snow and snow pack this late in the year!
We decided to try our luck and head into the Crater Lake lodge to see if they had anything available, not really expecting anything....we lucked out and got a room for two nights, with a view of the lake! Hard to beat that. I remember it was a lot colder than we expected, we had to buy gloves, hats, and sweatpants since most of our clothing was dirty at this point of the trip. After we bundled up we took a driving tour of the lake, unfortunately due to the snow, only about half the lake was accessible. We missed out on the Phantom Ship which was disappointing but still just seeing this incredible lake was worth the drive.
We went from view point to view point admiring that blue deep water, at some points I really wanted to kick myself for not learning how to do pano shots or having a wide angle lens. The lake is huge, don't make the same mistake I did, splurge on a wide angle if possible! We headed back for the day and took in a ranger event, the ranger told us about the ancient history of the lake. Long story short the lake actually used to be a giant volcano, like Mt. Rainier. It erupted, collapsed in on itself and filled with snow/rain, hence the clear water.
The next day I really wanted to attempt to climb Garfield Peak, a short 3.3 round trip hike. Piece of cake right? Not so much. I made it about a mile in and the snow pack and ice wasn't cooperating with me too well. I seen quite a few people turn around at points and I kept trucking along, the higher I got the more ominous the drop offs became, at one point I fell and almost went right over the opposite edge of the lake, no trees, no shrubs, no nothing to catch my fall. That's when I decided it'd probably a better idea to turn around. Ill tackle Garfield Peak another day...
After three days at the Lake it was time to move on, we woke up around 5 am and were surprised once again my mother nature, it snowed a few inches overnight and our whole trip to our next destination of mostly downhill. That made for a fun slippery trip. Stay tuned to see where we head next!

Taken on: June 11, 2012

Tags:

craterlake

crater

national

park

oregon

garfield

peak

hike

hotel

motel

camp

campground

map

hdr

nikon

canon

maksim

photography

trail

snow

winter

summer

spring

fall

blue

depth

fishing

boat

ride

trout

worms

animals

wildlife

bear

deer

owls

hawks

eagles

mountain

roads

fire

wild

wilderness

backcountry

station

visitor

phantom

ship

wizard

cone

volcano

erupt

manzanita

watchman

scott

mount

mt « less

Sets appears in: • Crater Lake National Park • D800 HDR more » • National Parks/Monuments/Ect • HDR « less

Camera: Nikon D800, f/10.0, 1/400 sec, 48mm, ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D800
Aperture:	f/10.0
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/400)
Focal Length:	48mm
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	Low gain up
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)
Show full info

Stats: 3,214 views

Link to this photo view:
Link to this photo large view: