Days 12, 13 and 14 – Crater Lake National Park

Joshua chillin' with Grammy and Grandad

We spent three glorious days at Crater Lake with Bill, Margaret and Joshua. Okay, in truth the weather wasn’t as glorious as the sights. We had mostly cloudy days with off and on rain the first two days and even had hail twice, but it really didn’t hamper activities all that much. I think the only thing we really missed was seeing the blueness of the lake in full sun. We caught some glimpses of sun on the water and the color was amazing.

Margaret, Bill & Joshua (sleeping in backpack) - Discovery Point

Bill and Margaret went on long hikes the first two days while we watched Joshua, which was our great pleasure. Then we took two family hikes on Thursday. The first was a 1-mile nature hike which Joshua walked almost the whole way. We even came upon a couple of young deer who must have thought we were walking too slow as they passed us like a shot. After lunch, we took a 2-mile hike out to Discovery Point and this time Joshua rode backpack on papa’s back. He even worked in a nap. For those of you who think this was easy hiking, the last hike was at 7,100 feet altitude, which makes going uphill tough for us old people. At least we didn’t complain. Okay, maybe we did a little but we finished the hike and then drove out from the park to Corvallis, OR.

Crater Lake (view from lodge area)

We took a ton of photos, but I’ll only share a couple.

Look out and Visitor Center

Crater Lake Lodge where we stayed