A Volcanic Visit with Dad

My Dad decided to make a sort of spur of the moment trip out to Portland from Denver. And, by spur of the moment, I mean, about a two month warning. After figuring out scheduling issues, we settled on this past Tuesday evening through Monday morning. Then the planning of fun things to do began. We'd planned to go hike Smith Rock State Park, but after doing some reading of recommendations to not hike it in July, we put those plans on hold. Instead, we were going to head to Crater Lake as our "big" part of the trip. Dad arrived Tuesday evening at the end of my work day and on Wednesday morning we got up, loaded the lunch we'd packed the night before and hit the road. The game plan was to head to Crater Lake, spend some time there, eat lunch, site see, etc and then head north to Bend. A town neither of us had ever been too.

I'd only been to Crater Lake one time and it was still very snow covered, so it was a treat to enter the North Entrance and be able to see the pumice field that was created thousands of years ago and still lays very desolate.

Even though it was more than half way through the month of July, there was still a lot of snow on the sides of the roads in some places. Notice the car coming towards us and how dwarfed it looks next to the snow.

More snow~

Mount Thielsen ~I loved this mountain. I was so in awe of it.

Dad's first glimpses of the phenomenal Crater Lake, which was once the majestic Mount Mazama. And, in all actuality, it is considered to be a caldera and no longer a crater.

Isn't it beautiful?!

Wizard Island in the middle of the lake~

Me and Dad!

If I remember correctly, the figures below are called fumaroles. Made by lava that had been coming up to the surface, fossilized and the ground around it eroded away leaving the lava exposed in these "spires."

It was nice and sunny for us!

Wizard Island. If you look at the "top" of the island you can see where the crater as this is a volcanic cone. If you look toward the bottom of the picture you can sort of see where the lava had been sliding down and is in an ark.

We stopped at lots of look outs along Rim Drive. Eventually we stopped for lunch and shared with this little guy. He's got a grape in his mouth. He also liked blueberries.

During the summer months you can hike down and take a boat to Wizard Island and hike it if you'd like. This is something that I would love to do, but they were still training on the day we were there, so it'll have to happen on another trip. In the picture below you can see the boat and they dock in that little bay of the island.

More snow...love the puckered look.

If you look closely in the exact center of this picture you can see the Phantom Ship.

I am still in awe about the colors of the water.

Dad and me from an outlook that is actually inside the caldera.

Peace on the snow.

Mount Thielsen from another vantage point!

We got to Bend for the evening and spent time wandering downtown and eating. In the morning we got up and headed toward Sisters. From there were made our way up to McKenzie Pass. On the drive up there were massive lava flows that age 2,600 years. It was like nothing else either of us have ever seen. Incredible. There were some areas where it seemed as though the lava flows were a hundred feet deep.

We stopped right at the pass, also the site of the Dee Wright Observatory. It is built completely out of the lava rocks that make up this desolate scenery.

It was so windy up there, but worth the trip and the stop.

A walking path among the lava flows.

You can see the little peak on the left side of the picture...that is Little Belknap Crater...one of the two sources of all this lava.

The peak offset to the right from the center of the below picture is Belknap Crater, the other source of the lava flows. If you look closely right under it and then to the left you can see two treed areas that the lava flowed around and created these secluded islands of still living vegetation.

The observatory~ See me in the "window"? Big windows!

Peace, Dad!

One of the views from inside the observatory. Two if the Sisters Mountains.

This points to all the peaks you can see from the top of the observatory.

The Pass sign! 5,325 Feet.

Us with the Sisters behind us. The people that took this picture of us had just taken a bike ride UP to the pass. They told us they do it every year....I would have died.

After visiting the Pass and Observatory we headed back to Sisters, got some goodies at a bakery that has gluten free treats and then headed back to Portland. On Friday we had planned to go to Mt St Helens, however,, it was very clouded in. Instead, we went to lunch at Deschutes Brewery, hit up Powell's book store, went to the International Rose Test Garden to enjoy the flowers and then on to another place, a surprise for Dad.

One of my favorites~~

One of Dad's favorites~~

A picture doesn't even do this place justice. The colors are amazing.

There are the most unusual squirrels at the Rose Garden...they are spotted.

The surprise, which I hadn't planned, it just worked out, was that I took Dad on the Portland Aerial Tram. The views are amazing!

The view and the tram.

I love Portland!

Since we didnm't make it to Mt St Helens on Friday, we decided to go Saturday. First, we went to the PSU Farmers Market. It was glorious, and busy, and full of good food and lots of people.

After the market we hit the road and headed north to see the last of the volcanoes we would see this trip. I still think it is so funny that we didn't actually plan to see so many volcanoes on purpose, it just happened that way. I realized when we were in Bend that that was going to be the case. It was worth it!

Mt St Helens!

As we are gradually getting closer~

The hillsides were covered in these gorgeous purple flowers, there is also some orange scattered in there. I loved them.

You can see the trees that were in the blast zone of the 1980 eruption, still in place.

The crater of St Helens and the desolate escape at its base.

I never would have known that there is a waterfall coming down off the mountain. It is called Loowit Falls. It is a 98 foot tall fall and in the picture below you can decipher it. What is seen is only 22 feet of it. Look for the falls on the right side of the picture, about a third of the way down. You can see a dark area with a white vertical stripe on the left side of the dark area. Apparently you can hike to the falls. What a rush that would be....maybe someday I will do it.

Just above the center of this picture you can see two large grey rocks...they were blasted from the base of the mountain to this location (approximately two miles from where they'd started from).

Such disaster a mountain can cause.

Gotta stop and say hi to Bigfoot!

A house that was built just before the eruption and was impacted and partially buried by the torrents of water, mud, etc that came down the mountain following the eruption.

On Sunday, our last day before Dad headed home, we went into the Columbia River Gorge for some milkshakes at Cascade Locks. We took the Historic Highway back and stopped at a few waterfalls.

Bridal Veil Falls below.

Dad's thing this time was the peace sign... :)

Dad loved the big rock you can see below. It looked so different depending on which side you looked at it from.

The view from Crowne Point.

Come Monday, I had to go back to work and Dad had to go back home. All in all we had a spectacular trip. We put over 1,000 miles on Dad's car, in our adventures here alone, plus his miles getting here and home. We saw so much and I was so glad he could come. Mom's visit up next...where shall we go then?!