I knew I was going to have a big day, so I tried to get up as soon as I could today. This meant that I still saw people going by me on the trail earlier than I could get going, but after a rough uncomfortable night in the burn area, I was ready to start moving. The trail stayed burned for much of the morning. I saw a few better campsites a mile or two beyond, but decided that there was nothing too much better about any of the other places that I could have camped. I was feeling pretty good hiking by this point. Much of the first couple of days, I was having a pain in my neck from how my pack pulled on my back. By this point I had tightened that up a bit and I was moving pretty good.
This became important as in the burn area, there were a lot more down trees. This day was going to be spent climbing over a lot of deadfall, but that was okay because the payoff of the whole part of Southern Oregon was coming in the form of finally getting to Crater Lake. This happened fairly early in the morning as far as entering Crater Lake National Park. There was not much fanfare to this other than this gave me a lot of excitement as this was my final goal for this leg of the trip and I was getting there a day earlier than I thought I might. Still I had some burnt forest and lots of deadfall to climb over before I was going to see the lakes.
I also ran into snow for the first time which made sense because Crater Lake is one of the highest spots on the trail. It actually was the highest spot on the trail in all of Oregon and Washington, but it wasn't officially on the trail. I had been debating about whether to stay on the main trail or to take the alternative route of going to the rim. Everyone I talked to was going to the rim. This is called taking the blue line or being ok with not doing all of the PCT. The red liners were people who had to do every inch of the PCT. I decided that I would be in the middle and do whatever I wanted to see while also moving north. This seemed to be what the majority were doing.
I pushed through in the morning and was carefully managing my water. I hadn't been able to refill my water bottles since the previous day at lunch and now I was getting close to lunch again. Most people would refill their bottles in Mazama Village, but I was skipping the village and passed by some people I had ran into a few times as they hitched a ride into town wondering if I would see them again.
I had another mile or so before I finally found a nice clear running stream. I sat down and drank a lot of water and felt refreshed. Then I proceeded to go straight uphill. This was the steepest part of the trail so far. I felt good though and kept a nice steady pace. Eventually, I popped out sweaty, but happy and was able to set my eyes on Crater Lake. First I had to weave through the crowds of people, though, because the trail had deposited me at Rim Village. This was a bit of a culture shock to me being mostly by myself all day and then to be surrounded by the crowds of tourists was a lot. I handled it ok as I was mostly awestruck by the lake.
It was a deep blue and you could just feel the uniqueness of this place as soon as you set eyes on it. It was amazing! I sat down and talked to my wife about meeting up the following day because I had service right on the rim. Then I spent the rest of the day following the rim trail and seeing the lake from all different angles. The rim trail was not in as great of shape as I was hoping it would be. There was a small section of paved trail, but then it because dirt and sometime deep sand. The trail also seemed to not be able to make up its mind, going quickly uphill, then dropping quickly down until finally it seemed to be better when following old road cuts.
I got to see the lake from so many different sides and took probably far too many pictures, but I was really enjoying being here. The day, though, got long and when I was about to leave the lake, I saw some people cooking dinner. The idea seemed to be from many people that if the Park Service didn't know about it, it was ok for them to be camping by the lake. I was not going to break the rules and instead was trying to do the entire rim trail and make it back to the PCT to camp. That meant a 25+ mile day, so when I hit the last stretch before Grouse Hill, I was feeling it. The mosquitoes came back also, which was never good. I had them around near Mazama Village, but these ones seemed more aggressive. Not wanting to put on more bug spray, I just dealt with them. I was surprised to see when I got to Grouse Hill, there was only one other tent there. I was expecting a packed house since this is the only place to camp for miles around, but instead there was just one guy there. I found a nice level spot and got the tent up as quickly as I could. Soon some other people showed up also, but there was lots of camping left for them too. I made myself a dinner and then hid out in the tent for the rest of the night. It would be another uncomfortable night without any lakes to jump into to clean off, but I was excited because tomorrow, the family was going to meet me to enjoy Crater Lake together.
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