Day 116

Mazama campground to Lightning Springs campground on the Crater Lake Rim alternative trail,  8.5 miles
Cost: camped, free

After last night’s late night, most hikers slept in and there was no noise until at least 7:30am. I left my tent up and went for a shower, then laundry, then had breakfast in the restaurant with Dundee and Ladiesman.

My tent on the left, Ladiesman’s on the right

After breakfast I went back to the campsite to pack up my tent and unpack my 7 days of food to get me from here to Big Lake youth camp. My pack feels heavy with 7 days of food 😦

The orange shoes are my new Cascadia 9s (the last pair on Amazon at the time)… I didn’t have a choice on the colour!

A little holey

The new shoes feel tighter but maybe it’s just because I’m used to feeling everything break out of my old ones. I donated my old shoes to the hiker box – there were at least 12 pairs of old shoes sitting next to the hiker box!

After all this, KC and I decided to have lunch before leaving. We were still charging electronics and not in any hurry to leave. We’d already decided that we were only going to walk as far as lightning springs campsite as this was the last water source for 25 miles and it was only 8 miles away so there wasn’t any hurry.

Lunch

Mazama restaurant

Mazama shop

After lunch we hung around to let our food digest and it was too hot to be hiking up a steep hill to get to the rim of crater lake. We ended up leaving at 5pm! It was a steep trail up to the rim where we arrived at the village cafe and had a quick vanilla cream soda then headed over for our first views of crater lake. It was stunning and it was now after 6pm and the light was soft and hazy from the nearby fires.

Rim village cafe and shop

Crater Lake info:

• Deepest lake in America
• The mountain is called Mt Mazama and erupted around 5,677 BC, reducing the peak from 12,000 feet to 8,159 feet
• Approx 42 times greater than the St Helen’s eruption
• Info from my awesome etrails App 🙂

KC and I at Crater Lake

We walked along the rim for a couple of miles and met a man called David who was out from Portland for the day and he walked with us until we got to the Lightning springs campsite around 9pm in the dark. 
Dundee was there with Rabbit, Sci fi, Chowder and Captain and I set up my tent next to Dundee’s. I had a quick snack then said goodnight while the others stayed up late playing cards.