Crater Lake

Today was Crater Lake day, although we did search out a few other views. The Rim Road around the lake is 33 miles and ranges up and down from 7,000 to 8,000 feet, but it takes a few miles to get there from Prospect plus we did some other sightseeing so we did about 150 miles today. I can never be sure of the order in which the pictures are displayed in the blog, so I'll describe them and you can figure out which description goes with which picture. There are two shots of Crater Lake (I took 46 and they're all winners), one includes Durelle and the other doesn't. There is a picture of the pinnacles. When the mountain erupted 8,000 years ago, the lava flowed down the mountain and was soon covered with pumice and ash. The super-hot gases forced their way upward through the pumice and ash and found their escape into the atmosphere as fumorales. The temperature in those vertical chimneys fused the surrounding materials into a solid in essence welding a vertical pipe. Over the years, the surrounding materials were eroded leaving these spires, most of which are hollow. There is a picture of a small stone building. Many of you have heard the expression, "built like a brick ****house. The folks that built this one went even one better.
Finally, there is a picture of the "Rabbit Ears". Yesterday the campground host was discussing the local vantage points in addition to Crater Lake which he called, "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of views. He noticed that we were towing a Jeep and he gave us a map to the Rabbit Ears. The Rogue River National Park is the largest ATV/OHV park in the nation. So we followed Forest Service trails ten miles from the pavement in 4WD. It was a steep climb (I had to use 4WD Low Range descending). Durelle was sure that we were going to have to remove a log across the trail before we were done, but everything went well...we got our pictures of the Rabbit Ears and returned safely. We were not overwhelmed with other tourists.
Tomorrow we proceed to Bend, OR. I have an abundance of unused pictures if we don't find anything in Bend.