Little Crater Lake

View Larger Map

I said this month would be crazy and so far it has been. First up is a camping trip Jessi and I took. We went up to Little Crater Lake which is in Mt. Hood National Forest. This was our first trip not on the coast, and it was a lot of fun. This particular camp ground is pretty sparse with only an out-house. Below is a video I took which shows the camp spot itself. You'll notice how private it is.

On one of the days we decided to go hiking around the near-by Timothy lake (Southwest on the map). When we looked at the sign, it looked like a 7.3 mile hike. That's far, but not unmanageable in a day. Thankfully, we decided to pack a lunch and take our time around the lake. As it turned out, the map was slightly miss-leading. I mean, if you stop and study the map, you'll see that it's actually 13 miles around the lake with another half mile to and from our campsite. I'm sure you could imagine our surprise when we got across the lake and realized we had already gone 7 miles.

By the time we got done, we had set a new single-day steps record. I wear a pedometer to make sure I get at least 5,000 steps a day and I aim for 10,000 steps a day. On this particular day, we went 26,000 steps. The previous record was 25,000 steps which we did in Paris. By the end of the day my feet hurt a lot because I was wearing regular shoes.

The next day we spent lounging around and campsite. I finished a good book and took lots of naps. There's something fun about camping and being super lazy.

So, what's so special about Little Crater Lake? What I found interesting is how small it was. The diameter was less than 50 yards across which you can kind of see in this picture. The amazing part is how deep it is. If you look carefully, you can see that it drops off super fast, and is indeed deeper than wide. The reason for this was explained on a nearby post. I guess there's a body of water underground which is under pressure. With slight tectonic shifts of the crust, it created a crack which the water rushed up. Over time, that crack grew large and larger until it created the pool we see today. Over time, until pressures equalize, the lake will continue to grow.

So that's our trip. Finally, here's a video of Jessi talking about the trip and showing off the fire we made.