My wife and I had reserved three nights at Crater Lake Lodge back in December. We were even able to reserve a room with a view of the lake, be it through small windows. We were looking forward to hiking the many trails, but it never dawned on us that it would still be mostly snowed in. A lot of that had to do with the cool, wet, long spring we, but we should have thought of the possibility.We arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday and was told that the trail to Garfield Peak was about the only trail available, but that it was blocked part way up. So we ventured around 6:00 PM and ran into snow almost right away. My wife decided she didn't want to go on any further and gave me her blessing to go on.
As I continued along the trail, I encountered several patches of snow, but was able to traverse most of them until I came along one that looked a bit treacherous, so I decided it was time turn back. Besides, we had dinner reservations and I needed to get back.
Along the way, I took this picture of the lodge looking back from the trail.
The shot below is looking down at the lake from high above the trail leading to Garfield Peak. The water along the shore had this really cool greenish look as you can see.
Unfortunately, I saw very few birds, but I did see a few chipmunks along the way.
The only birds I saw the entire time at the lake were some Crows, Steller's Jays, a couple of Clark's Nutcrackers and this Yellow-rumped Warbler. It was the only bird that let me get a decent shot.
After giving it some thought that evening, we decided this wasn't the right time to spend three days at Crater Lake, so we changed plans and left for Bandon, Oregon the next morning. That turned out to be a much better experience.
