Crater Lake National Park

I first googled Crater lake national park to browse some pictures before deciding our Fall long weekend get away. The images were stunning and I was excited to drive 7 hours with a three-year-old toddler and a 35-year old boy 🙂 We drove from San Fransisco area to Oregon and stopped by at multiple places on the way. The pictures that I am sharing do not do justice to the actual beauty. Crater lake is breathtaking!

Sacramento River at Turtle Bay

On our way to Crater lake, we stopped by Sacramento River at Turtle Bay. There is a beautiful glass bridge which houses many insects including spiders. If you like spiders, you must stop by to see all kinds! The spiders are there to eat mosquitos that live at the banks of the river. It is a great ecosystem if you think about it 🙂

Medford, OR

We continued our drive to our hotel in Medford, OR which was about an hour drive from Crater lake. I am sure you can find something closer to the lake if you plan ahead, but we usually decide to travel 2-3 days in advance (sometimes the same morning!). Medford is a small town and we didn’t find many interesting things to do. The downtown was also quite empty (it could be due to the long weekend?). But we found an excellent pizza place where we ate both the nights 🙂

Crater Lake National Park

I will let you soak the beauty through these pictures first!

You can breathe now 🙂 Crater lake is amazingly gorgeous and the best part is that it looks different from each angle, every hour of the day, and every other day! The clouds bring a different tinge to the blue. Anyways, Crater lake offers some excellent hikes and we picked three hikes-two easy (day 1) and a moderate hike (day 2).

Discovery Point Trailhead

This was our easy hike. This trail goes around the lake and is very flat. It is good for younger kids. Our daughter has been hiking since she was two, so she could easily do this hike and had a good time waving at people and playing in the dirt. The dirt was very loose for some reason and she totally ruined all her clothes 🙂

Vidae Falls Hike

Again, our easy hike! The Vidae fall didn’t have enough water but we saw some cool plants on the way!

Garfield Peak Trail

On the second day of our stay at Crater Lake, we hiked the Garfield Peak trail. It was a moderate hike. The hike is uphill for the most part but it provides stunning views of the lake on the way. We usually start our hikes early in the morning, to beat the hiker traffic and be back before the lunch time. Our 3-year old loved to hike this one. She would stop at every turn, enjoy the views, and say “it’s so beautiful”!

It gets little narrow at times, but that’s the fun! It reminded me of a childhood story where two goats were supposed to cross the river on a narrow log and how they managed to do it. Same way, we had to give way to others and sometimes others waited for us the go past them. So I highly recommend this hike!

Last, but not the least, couple of suggestions:

1. Pack your lunch before you go hiking. All the cafes were out of food by the time we came back from our hike on day 1. We just ate cookies for lunch (I’m not complaining, but still..). So we picked up some wraps before starting our hike, put our food in the car trunk, finished our hike, and had lunch by the lake on the second day. We also saw a family of deer. Also, there is a fancy restaurant by the lake that needed reservations. We didn’t bother to check it out, but it can be an option for you.
2. Parking problems: I think it is obvious for all of us. Parking is very restricted at the main quad, but since our daughter is an early riser, we didn’t have the issue.

Oregon

Ok, now Oregon deserves a special mention in this blog. I fell in love with the place because it cares for its people. For example:

1. The speed limit on Highway 5 is 65mph in CA and reduces to 55mph as soon as you enter the state line!
2. It is illegal to pump your own gas. There are people at the gas stations who would do that for you!
3. The pharmacy hung small magnifying glasses by the medicine aisle for people to read the labels!
4. It is greener than California!
5. Marrionberry jams/pies- Do not forget to grab couple of these when you heading out!!
   

   

    

   Please leave a comment if you are motivated to visit Crater Lake after reading this blog! I love to hear from you. Cheers!!

   Also, please visit and like my facebook page where I share #mysky @ https://www.facebook.com/lookmysky/

A hike at Point Reyes National Seashore

We visited Point Reyes National Seashore past weekend and experienced contrasting weather. Saturday was sunny, little wind, and gorgeous blue sky. Sunday turned out to be cold, super windy, overcast, and not fun.

Tomales Point Trail

We were wise to go for a hike called Tomales Point Trail (TPT) on Saturday and spent about 3 hours along the ocean hiking and covered 4.2 miles total. There was a ranch village at the beginning of TPT which didn’t look inhabited for most part. However, we saw one car parked outside one of the houses. The rest of the houses looked empty and not in use. The ranch village had a blacksmith shop, a barber shop, a barn, etc. It was pretty fun to imagine the life at the ranch years ago. There were lot of active ranches/dairies on the way to TPT and we saw at least a hundred cows resting in the sun.

Beautiful hike along the pacific ocean

Barn at the ranch

Village at the ranch

Wildflowers and Vistas

Being a plant biologist, I am always fascinated by flora of the region. I observe tree architecture, leaf shapes/colors, and most of all- flowers! I love flowers, not just the ornamental ones you will find at stores, also the wild flowers. They come in all shapes and sizes and it is always fun to find such a variety within 2 miles of a hike.

Vistas are just amazing at TPT. You are hiking among wildflowers around the hill and suddenly the pacific ocean peek-a-boos to give a surreal feeling. No matter which direction you look, you will feel awe and gratitude to be part of such beautiful surroundings. 

 

Trees had striking architecture

Moo!

 

Wildflowers on our trail

 

 

 

A beach peeking through cliffs

Wildflowers on our trail

Trail

Wildflowers on our trail

Wildflowers on our trail

Wildflowers on our trail

Wildflowers on our trail

Trail had some narrow passages as well

Toddler friendliness

The TPT hike was a lot of fun and my toddler S walked most of the trail. S waved to people along the trail, said Hi to almost everyone, stretched her arms to block the trail (although her arms are not long enough to close the way :)), and chanted “I think I can” while going uphill. We met a very friendly dog named Ali who was panting profusely and looked pretty tired after a long hike! And if you are lucky, you might see some Elks on the hills 🙂 

Elks resting in the sun

Finished our hike!

We had a great time and also got some beautiful pictures of the trail.