JkbWorld

Day Two of the trip started out with us breaking camp at Crater Lake and heading North.  We decided that we were going to camp up at East Lake in the Newberry Caldera.  We deliberated about camping at Diamond Lake before determining East Lake was the place to go, so we decided that we would at least stop and check it out first, while we were within 10 miles of it from Crater Lake.

Driving north out of Crater Lake, there was a fork in the road as well as a viewpoint and information kiosk, so we pulled off and checked it out and snapped this nice picture of Mt. Bailey with Diamond Lake in the foreground.  Diamond Lake offers some of the best trout fishing in the state.

We drove down to the lake’s edge and looked around.  From here, you can see the top of Mt. Scott in Crater Lake National Park as well as some of the higher peaks along the crater rim.

Paula on the edge of the lake with Mt. Bailey in the background.  Look how clear the water is, too!

Here is Mt. Thielsen from Diamond Lake.  You’ll also notice that we somehow caught a mosquito in this picture.  Diamond Lake supposedly has the worst mosquitoes of anywhere in Oregon.  That must be pretty rough, because the Crater Lake mosquitoes were pretty big and aggressive–I even saw one with a tattoo!

So, we checked things out at Diamond Lake and headed north some more along Highway 97, stopping in Chemult for lunch at a strange cafe whose sign advertised Taxidermy and Bottle Collection in addition to lunch.

We finally arrived at the Newberry Caldera in the mid-afternoon and decided to go hike up the Big Obsidian Flow.  It is a big former lava flow that left a mountain of pumice and obsidian behind.

The terrain is very rough on the flow.  The obsidian is very sharp and supposedly has sharper blades than surgical implements.  The pumice is also very sharp and hard, in a sandpapery kind of way.

The Indians and Native people would travel for hundreds of miles from their homelands in Washington, Oregon and northern California to come to the Obsidian flow for obsidian for tools and weapons.

From the Obsidian Flow, you can see an old crumbling peak in the distance, which is apparently a remnant of Mt. Newberry’s crater rim.  Mt. Newberry was a supervolcano of its time, even bigger than Mt. Mazama, that made Crater Lake.

Here is a picture of Paulina Lake from the top of the Obsidian Flow.  You can see the Three Sisters in the background, too.  Paulina Lake has filled a deep part of Mt. Newberry’s crater, and East Lake, which is to the Right also fills another section of the crater.  Unfortunately, East Lake was in a bad spot with respect to the sun, so none of those pictures came out.

Next, we hiked back down and drove for about 10 miles down an old washboard pumice gravel road up and down several steep hills, trying carefully not to blow out a tire, looking for a trailhead up to the dome, which has a great view of the entire Newberry Crater and several of the cascade volcanoes.  However, we got to where the trailhead should have been and after about 10 minutes of searching, found the trailhead sign off the side of the road.  Apparently, the sign got knocked down and dragged for several hundred feet.  Unfortunately, we were not able to ever find the trailhead.  On the other hand, we came to the realization that our trail book was 10 years old.  Maybe we’ll get the newer edition next time.

We decided to try to fish for a little while at East Lake, but found that there were some pretty wicked weeds that snagged you on nearly every cast, so we gave up after hiking about a half-mile down the lake looking for a weed-free spot.  Then, the cold winds followed us back from Crater Lake, and finally drove us back to the roaring fire at our campsite.  We roasted our hotdogs and popped some Jiffy popcorn over the campfire which was fun and tasty!  We both slept well that night, after spending the day in the hot sun.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 1:43 am and is filed under Hiking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.