Crater Lake which is located in Oregon, the deepest lake in the U.S., is more than 1,900 feet deep. Rim Drive is a 33-mile road that encircles Crater Lake and it provides spectacular views of the lake and the cliffs that surround it. I had a chance to visit here last week and the weather was changeable during my stay. The first day of my trip the weather was nice, the next day it totally turned around. I woke up in the early morning and looked at outside of my room. It was raining at first, but the next second the rain became the snow which was slowly falling down. Actually this was my first time to see snow falling. Of course, I was so excited about seeing this white world.
The snow was falling all day long and the temperature was below the zero. It was hard to believe that the weather could have made such a big change during the two days. Because of the bad weather I could not go anywhere. Therefore, my boyfriend and I stayed at the Mazama Village where people could see the best views of Crater Lake. At times when the snows stopped falling, we walked outside to see the beautiful scenery along the lake. Fortunately, the snows did not follow us during the whole trip. The next day, the sun appeared and the snows were melted quickly.
Following the itinerary, we started the clockwise trip along Rim Drive. The scenes, the lighting and the mood of this great park changed as we circled the lake, making this one of the world’s most beautiful drives. Many special wildflowers and trees were along the drive. One of them was easy to recognize, the mountain hemlock. Its branches were flexible to bend instead of break under the heavy snow loads and winds. Moving on the route, Wizard Island, a volcano inside a volcano, was a cone-shaped island. It was surrounded by the lake and grew many of the oldest trees on it. The view from this overlook was one of the best on Rim Drive. I saw the snow covered the mountains and Wizard Island, and the lake reflected the sunshine. It was a marvelous view I have never seen before.
Since we drove for a long time, we decided to go hiking for a while. We followed the hiking trail and went to the shallow water in the channel between Wizard Island and the lake’s edge. The water appeared to be many different colors: azure blue, turquoise, and emerald green and it looked like an amazing painting.
After we had lunch and rested for a while, we kept going on our volcanic trip. We drove along Rim Drive to see different prospects and enjoyed the nature environment. Before sunset, we left for Mount Shasta, located in California. It was one of the famous volcanoes in the United States. We stayed one night at Weed City, where the population was only 3000 people, and prepared for the next day’s trip.
Near noon, we took the free way around Mount Shasta while we were heading to the Lake Shasta Caverns, which are famous for limestone and marble caves. Before starting the cave tour we took a 15-minute cruise across Lake Shasta and took a minibus, which carried us up the mountainside, more than 800 feet above the lake. There were several rooms in the cave, and each room had different formations, for example, crystal, multi-colored fluted columns, draperies, milky-white flowstone and so on. The temperature of the cave was moderate but the floor was very wet. We followed the tour guide and listened to her explanation about the history and causes of the different formations. This tour was worth taking because I learned a lot of geographic knowledge.
I enjoyed seeing beautiful nature sceneries and breathing fresh air during this trip. The most favorite part was to see the snows and feel them melting on my face. This has become my best trip since I have come to the U.S. because of the good timing.
