Lake Tahoe, Reno and Crater Lake

From Second Deepest Lake to Deepest Lake

After our long and strenuous hiking adventures, we could use some rest. Our definition of rest on this road trip is driving and that's what we did on the next two days... all the way to Oregon.

But we did make some stops on our way. First stop, Lake Tahoe where we relaxed on the beach for about 30 minutes. A beach located at America's second deepest lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains at an elevation of almost 2 km above sea level. It is a strange feeling to be sitting in the sun with your feet in the sand while watching the snow capped mountains!

Our second stop along the way was Reno, the gambling city. According to our guide it was a worthy alternative to Las Vegas but I should check the expiration date on that guide... Reno was really depressing, a lot of empty buildings, weird and scary people and retired folks blowing their pension on the slots. We gambled $5 before we got sick of it. Definitely not an alternative to Vegas... to be avoided at all costs!

On July 7th, we drove further North with a first stop in Lassen Volcanic National Park. There was still so much snow that the road into the park was only open for 8 miles. So unfortunately, we only saw a small part of the park's volcanic fumaroles and mud pots. On the other hand, it's not everyday that you can have a snowball fight in shorts and sandals!

From Lassen, we drove to Whiskeytown Recreational Park (no, it's not what you think) for a picnic. This is one of the many lakes in this area, there are so many that this particular park was not even in any of our guidebooks.

After lunch, we drove to the foot of Mount Shasta, more than 4 km high... Since it was already quite late, we decided not to climb to the top.

On July 8th, we arrived in Oregon's only national park, Crater Lake, the deepest lake in America with some of the clearest water in the world. The lake lies inside a crater (actually, caldera) created about 7700 years ago when volcanic mountain Mazama collapsed after a big eruption. We arrived very early in the morning and were able to catch a ride on one of the boat tours around the lake with a park ranger pointing out the history of the lake. It was an amazing feeling to float around on America's deepest lake inside a dormant volcanoe!

One weird fact our ranger pointed out was the "Old Man of the Lake". The old man is in fact a 9 meter tree floating vertically in the river, probably already for more than 100 years...