A Visit to Crater Lake and Searching for the Klamath Falls

Only a few isolated patches of snow remain of what was winter as the temps touched 6o this week. Since this was our last week here we concentrated on adventures rather than work.

Crater Lake National Park is less than an hour north so we spent a day exploring that area. The majority of the park is still closed due to the snow. Both East Rim Drive and West Rim Drives are closed but the road to the Visitors Center and Rim Village were open.

The snow was so high that it was up to the roof on most of the buildings and covered many of the entrances. We had to use a side entrance to get into the Visitors Center as there was about 8 feet of snow covering the front door.

Lily, Forrest and Somer

The views of the lake combined with the snow were incredible!

 On the way back to Klamath Falls we stopped by the Fish Hatchery which too was very cool. They had numerous tanks each containing a specific age of fish. We spent an hour walking the grounds and feeding the fish.

There was a mayfly hatch going on while we were there, it was fun to watch them try and fly over the tanks. Trout would jump out of the water and snatch them out of the sky. Try as I might, I just could not get a picture of one in the air.

I would love to fish here!

Lily and Grandma walking along the pond

A pond with thousands of smaller trout

Hard to see but these were some of the bigger fish

We also went out in search of the “infamous” Klamath Falls after which the city was named after. We figured they had to be spectacular given they named the city after them. We drove the town north to south and east to west but try as we might we just could not find these spectacular falls. Returning home I googled Klamath Falls to see where they are.

The city was founded in 1867 under its original name of Linkville where the Link River joined Upper Klamath Lake to Lower Klamath Lake. In 1893 it was changed to Klamath Falls but even then there were no “falls”  it was just a series of rapids instead of an actual water fall. A hydroelectric project in 1921 eliminated these rapids so even they are gone. Today it is home to about 21,500 who refer to the city as “K Falls” rather original name. And that is your history lesson for the week!

This week was Barbs turn to get out fishing with Forrest. They went out on the Klamath River to the same spot we had gone the week before and caught several Rainbows. Unfortunately they are both horrible at remembering to take pictures but Barb did manage to get a couple pictures of Forrest as he was fishing.

A nice Rainbow!

Our final adventure of the week was climbing the “hill” behind his house.  Forrest and I have been eyeing and talking about that hill behind his house since they moved in. How high is it? How long would it take to climb it? What’s on the other side? We had walked little way up it last week looking for his property markers but we were still a long ways from the top.

I does not look that far!

So this week we decided to see if we could conquer it. 

Over the past 4 years Barb and I have completed some pretty strenuous hikes; Angels Landing, Guadalupe Peak, Pikachu Peak trails. The one we consider our toughest was the Sheep Creek/Bullion Plateau trail in the Yukon. Although this hike was only 6 miles, 3 miles of it was uphill with a 1,400 foot elevation change. I still remember hiking some of the tougher stretches of that trail; going 50 yards and taking a break, then another 50 yards, taking a break and so on.

With these hikes in mind Forrest and I set out on our adventure. 5 hours later we were back at his house totally exhausted and legs like rubber. Although we only hiked a total of 3 ½ miles it was by far the toughest hike I have been on. According to my GPS data it is only ½ mile to the top as the crow flies (we must have covered 3x's that with our switchbacks) but the terrain climbs over 1000 feet making for an almost 40% grade. The fact that there was no trail made it even tougher. We followed game trails when we found them, created our own switch backs or just trudged right up the hill. We had to constantly watch out for rocks being dislodged and tumbling down from the person in the lead. With all the switchbacks we hiked well over a mile on the way up spending more time resting than we did climbing but the view was incredible!

Multiple rest stops were needed along the way

Another breather.....

The view from the top, Upper Klamath Lake in the background

Once at the top  we explored the area for an hour or so before heading back down. The coolest thing we found up there was a set of mountain tracks in the snow!

Mountain Lion tracks

As you can guess the hike down took a fraction of the time as we more or less did foot slides straight down rather than doing switchbacks. Cross that off my list, not sure I am doing that again!

The day before Easter was not a fun day for Lily and Dakota. For the past three days Dakota has had a pretty bad cough and throwing up a lot. We thought maybe she had something stuck in her throat so Barb took her into the vet. Two x-rays and a thermometer probe later, ends up she has a bad case of bronchitis and a fever.  I did not even know that dogs could get bronchitis. The vet said she was on the verge of pneumonia which is almost always fatal in dogs. So now she is on antibiotics for a while. Oh, and a diet. How dare he call Dakota overweight!

Barb also took a road trip of her own this week down to Redding California to see her stepmother. It was about a 3 hour drive each way and she said they had a great day together. No pictures though as she forgot the camera.

Lily had a traumatic day as well. We had looked up the schedule for the local Easter egg hunt and saw that her age group started at 10:15. When we arrived at 10:10 everyone was heading to their vehicles with full Easter baskets. We figured it had to be the other age groups but when we got to the event site we asked and they said it was over. Evidently they had set up different sections for different age groups and the guy on the loud speaker was supposed to announce when each age group could go. Well, no one could hear what he was saying so when he said "Go" all the kids went and the entire event was over in about 30 seconds. So poor Lily left with an empty Easter basket!

Lily showing off her empty Easter basket

 She was a trooper though and we assured her that the Easter bunny would make up for it!

We leave here bright and early Monday morning to start our trek to South Dakota, sure hope the weather warms up and the snow melts before we get there!