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/

Muir Woods National Monument

July 4th is special. People seem so happy and not afraid to show their patriotic blue+red+white colors, and more importantly it is a long weekend that falls in summer. Bay area, California  is hike friendly all year round, but summer makes it much easier to hike along the ocean and also in the woods. I have a bucket list of the places I want to visit. Muir Woods National Monument (just Muir Woods for this blog) has been on the list the longest. Even after living 50 miles away from Muir Woods, I have not been there. The main reason being fear: fear that was instilled by friends, colleagues, and people on the internet. I heard horror stories of limited parking, how visitors are not friendly at all, and how noisy it is, that ruins the whole experience. So I feared going to Muir Woods. We were throwing ideas for places to visit during July 4th weekend and Muir Woods came up.  We couldn’t decide until Saturday night 8pm that we wanted to go or not. We read every bit of information on the internet and made the commitment to go Sunday morning. I must say I am so glad we went. It was a great experience. Tips from my own experience today might give you some confidence to take the plunge to go to Muir Woods before the County makes reservations mandatory.

1. Go early. I can’t stress this enough! We woke up at 5:30am and left at 6:30 (can’t believe it myself since our toddler S was in the equation too!!). We reached Muir Woods parking lot just before 8am. The first parking lot was already full! And the second parking lot was 98% full. Parking is so limited in Muir Woods that people reach there around 7am. And then there are people who are so inconsiderate that they take up part of second spot making it useless to park. Anyways, my point is, go early. It’s always a good idea to get there early. There are multiple benefits to reach early: a) you get a parking spot and don’t have to park few miles down the road. even if you decide to take the shuttle, arriving early is better. See next.. b) It is so much quieter in the morning, before the big rush around noon. We hiked the Ocean View Trail and met few hikers. It was so quiet that we could hear the birds chirping, wind blowing, and water running though the little creeks. When we were coming back to the visitor center around 11am, we could hear people chatter. Chatter is so loud that I couldn’t hear any of the natural sounds!! c) Since we have a toddler who walks slow, it took us longer to do the hike. With fewer people around, we didn’t have much problem since we could go on our own pace. d) We started hiking at 8:30am and went up the Ocean View Trail. We hiked back to the base around 11am which was perfect for our meal times. Picnicking is not allowed on the trail. There are few benches by the gift shop where you can eat. If we started later, then we couldn’t have hiked as much as we did, since toddler S becomes a hungry monster around noon.
2. Wear jacket. I was not expecting cold weather on July 3rd when it is officially summer time. But it was pretty chilly, also because we were very early (started hiking at 8:15am). The sun came out around 1pm and it got little warmer. So it is better to dress in layers.
3. Take food. I always try to take home-made lunch for hikes, otherwise it is such a hassle to find something to eat at the parks which is always over-priced! The food at Muir Woods cafe inside the park was okay, little overpriced, and not many vegetarian options. Since picnicking is not allowed at the Muir Woods National Monument, we drove a little to the Muir Wood Overlook which has picnic benches. It was little windy but manageable. The view was gorgeous. So we had lunch overlooking the pacific ocean and drove back home afterwards.

PHOTOS AND DESCRIPTION

Muir Woods is gorgeous. Period. You turn few degrees and you will see a new image. It is very green, and there are few creeks on the hikes too. You can hear the birds chirping, water flowing, and wind blowing. The smell of Eucalyptus trees on the way to Muir Woods is mesmerizing 🙂

Trail Map

Finally Sun is here!

Yes you can find out the age of a tree by counting its annual rings (one for each year)!

Beginning of Ocean View trail

Every angle is a sight!

Redwood Creek

The first and only bench we found on our 2 mile trail!

I love the description: Ocean View trail to ‘lost’ trail

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.