Terry’s Worklog

Diamond Lake redux

So this weekend, my family and I spent 4 nights down at Diamond Lake with my wife’s two sisters, their families and their parents. 

(not pictured, my brother-in-law, my wife’s parents and me)

For Kenny and Nathan, it was their second trip down to Diamond Lake in 2 weeks.  During the first trip down, we went camping with my Mom and Dad.  It was the first time that Kenny or Nathan had been camping (not counting the backyard) and it was so successful, we were looking forward to doing it again. 

This trip was much different than the first.  To start, there were 7 kids counting my two boys, with two of my nephews being Kenny and Nathan’s ages (6 and 3).  This obviously was a lot of fun for the boys, as we had the 4 amigos running between 4 camps playing, digging and chasing each other. 

Since we had 4 days down at Diamond Lake, we tried to pack quite a bit of stuff into it.  The boys didn’t come to Crater Lake on our last visit (since I was riding the rim), so we made sure that we took them this time.  We went to the lodge, drove the rim, and then hiked down to the water’s edge.  For those that haven’t been to Crater Lake before, the hike down to the water is about a 0.7 miles (I think) covering 700 vertical feet.  You start walking down obviously — and everyone finds the walk down to be a blast.  We got down to the bottom, took a few pictures:

   

Once the kids (and I) had a chance to play in the water :), we started the hike back up.  My brother-in-law, Rob, and I had the pleasure of packing the two youngest back up the rim on our shoulders.  It’s times like those that I wish Nathan was growing quite so fast. :)  However, everyone made it to the top, and we got lots of nice pictures of the rim from the many lookouts around the lake.  Here are a few:

 

Phantom ship

 

Alyce and the boys

After doing the hike up and down the rim, my brother-in-law and Alyce’s parents decided that we would hike Mount Scott the next day.  Mount Scott is the highest point at the Crater Lake National Park at 8900+ feet.  The hike from the trail head is 2.5 miles and is rated for intermediate hikers because it gets steep over the last 1/3 to 1/4 of the hike.  The hike is suppose to take 3 1/2 hours to go up and down, but the views from the top of the mountain are suppose to be worth it.  So we decided to give it a go.  Since we had things that we wanted to do as well, Rob and I hiked it up the mountain at a brisk pace getting to the top in about 45 minutes, and I can definitely say it was worth it.  Rather than post the pictures, I’ll post the 260 degree video short that I shot while at the top.  It’s a 16 mb QuickTime file, but from the top of the mountain, you can see Diamond Lake, Klamath Lake and Mount Shasta.  Here’s the clip: View from Mount Scott.  Going down was a blast as well.  We jogged done the trail, getting off the mountain in about 12 minutes.

We didn’t spend all our time at Crater Lake though.  We went swimming, fishing, boat riding, etc.   All lots of fun.  Fishing for me was especially fun.  I love to fish — it’s something I don’t have nearly enough time for, but I got to go out for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening and caught 2 Rainbow Trout (14+ inches each) which will be tomorrow’s dinner.  The boys got to go out as well, though they don’t have the patience for fishing, so it was mostly riding the boat. 

  

All and all, it was a great time.  We got to spend time just with my family and time with our extended family making it a great second camping trip for the boys.  Of course, next time we do this, hopefully it will be somewhere a little warmer.  I’d warned my wife before I went that the nights this time of year would be a bit chilly, and boy were they.  Each night was in the low thirties, which was a bit of a shock for everyone coming from the nice warm Valley. :)  Fun time, but I guess it’s time to get back online and back to work.

–TR

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