TRAVEL
AND ADVENTURE
Getting to Crater Lake takes a little climbing
By Bob
Ragaini
Copley News Service
MEDFORD, OR - The temperature was heading toward 90 when guides Liz and Jay of Austin-Lehman Adventures shuttled 12 guests to the first hike of their trip.
"We are what is known as NFAs," Jay explained during his introduction. "That stands for 'no fixed address.'"
"My father has finally decided I'm a gypsy," Liz added. "After this season with Austin-Lehman, I'm probably going to Asia for a few months, because that's what gypsys do."
But Liz was a gypsy who was also writing a novel based on her experiences as a personal gourmet chef.
Negotiating a road climbing high into the Siskiyou National Forest, Jay stopped the van at a place ominously called Grizzly Peak. Embarking on a trail padded with pine needles, Liz strode off briskly up a hill of towering lodgepole pines that pierced a cloudless sky. The fittest of our group, a mixed bag of occupations and levels of abilities, stayed with Liz. The rest set paces comfortable for them, Jay taking up the rear. Perhaps it was our common interest in nature and beautiful places, or perhaps it was the knowledge that none of us could or needed to upstage the others, that a natural camaraderie soon developed among us.
As we approached the summit, the forest turned suddenly into a nightmare of barren, charred poles. It was the skeletal remains of a forest fire, terrifying to imagine. Upon a rocky ledge, Jay was soon whipping fresh cream with a whisk to put on strawberries and blackberries for a rest-stop snack.
Life was good again.
Sometime during the evening's dinner at a historic inn, Liz had left a note at the door of our room: "Jay and I hope that you enjoyed the starter hike today at Grizzly Peak. We hiked to almost 6,000 feet, but only in preparation for Mt. Scott on Tuesday, the highest point in Crater Lake National Park."
Seven thousand, seven hundred years ago, a mountain in what is now southern Oregon erupted and collapsed upon itself, leaving a massive crater surrounded by a jagged rim. Over time, rain and the melt from prodigious snowfalls filled the crater until it became the deepest lake in North America.
To the Klamath Indians it was known as "gi-was," Crater Lake. The first white men who stumbled upon it called it Big Blue Lake. By the time President Theodore Roosevelt designated it Oregon's first and only national park in 1902, it was again Crater Lake.
Since then, Crater Lake has attracted its share of visitors, but is not a celebrity park like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, which is what attracted me to Austin-Lehman Adventure's multisport trip to Crater Lake National Park. They were going where few tour operators had gone before. And I was going with them.
The next morning, the lot at the west entrance to the park was three-quarters empty. Jay pulled the van with 14 bikes on top and the trailer carrying luggage, food and equipment into a slot and we tumbled out, shook off the kinks and headed for Annie Creek - not Crater Lake.
Instead, we hiked down a narrow path through conifer forests, open fields and amber meadows to Annie Creek. It riffled prettily at the foot of the trail, lovely but not the lake we longed for. Annie always was a tease.
Crater Lake was up, 6,173 feet above sea level. After a picnic lunch, up was the direction we took. For two and a half hours our legs were given a workout. Then the trees parted, the sky opened and a blast of motorcycle engines told us we'd arrived. Liz was waiting with wine and a basket of fruit and cheese, which she placed upon a ledge overlooking the bluest lake we'd ever seen.
Six miles across, four and a half at its narrowest and encircled by a 33-mile rim road, the sheer size of the lake intensified the initial disbelief at its color. Laid out under cliffs that rose up to 2,000 feet above it, it flowed around a single large island into hidden coves. Blue and more blue.
A short but steep trail began at Crater Lake Lodge where we were staying, and a few of us decided to hike up an appetite before dinner. When we were well above the lodge, a bank of low-lying clouds raced toward the lake. Now the sun touched it only in spots, here intense, there soft and muted, other places not at all. Unlike the earlier pure, deep blue, the water's color ranged from slate-gray to topaz and all the hues in between. On Garfield Peak at 8,054 feet, the mist enveloped us, swirling and ghostly, turning everything white.
The hike to Mount Scott that Liz had promised was also rated "strenuous," though even our newest beginners conquered it, simply by taking their time. From the summit, the entire lake spread out before us. Endless forests reached to the Cascade Mountains that rose behind.
The Mount Scott hike and a final drive around the rim marked our farewell to Crater Lake.
But wait - as they say on the infomercials - there's more!
Down from the top of the van came 14 Cannondale bikes. (Not by themselves. Jay and Liz helped.) We hopped on and sped downhill, some 20 miles toward the town of Ashland and our third hotel.
As if biking and hiking weren't enough, Austin-Lehman had taken advantage of Crater Lake's proximity to the Rogue River, famous for its rafting. In four-passenger rubber rafts (plus a guide), we furiously paddled over cascading rapids and blissfully relaxed on the tranquil stretches connecting them.
In Ashland, long renowned for its Shakespeare Festival, we took our seats, after the morning's rafting, in a full house to see "The Tempest."
Though ably acted by professionals who succeeded in making the dialogue crystal clear, one of our group succumbed. Multisported out, the guest sat bolt upright, eyelids at half-mast, and slept. What biking, hiking and rafting couldn't accomplish, Shakespeare in Ashland did.
SIDEBAR
Austin-Lehman Adventures (www.austinlehman.com, 800-575-1540) specializes in upscale multisport trips throughout the Americas. Trips for all abilities combine guided outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, rafting, canoeing and horseback riding with nights spent at a series of distinctive inns and lodges. Guests should prepare for sun, rain, wind and calm. Highly recommended are Ex Officio's lightweight rain gear and zip-off pants, convertible to shorts (800-644-7303, www.exofficio.com.).
Bob Ragaini is a freelance travel writer.
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