JJDreamweaver: Cascading Through Oregon

Blog No 5

Moving on out of California and into Oregon we keep pushing north into the southern section of the Cascade Mountain Range. The Cascades are arranged along a north/south axis similar to the Sierra Nevada, not quite as high generally but still some very high peaks. The range is still very active volcanically and is closely monitored by the Federal National Parks Services.

Another startled deer

A very relaxed looking deer

This NW corner of the US is being uplifted by the Pacific Ocean tectonic plate diving under the US mainland plate and the friction between the two plates heats the rock which then has to escape upwards creating pimple like stand-alone mountains. These mountains have been forming and exploding in a historical timeframe counted in thousands of years not millions of years like further south.

Fellow road travellers, a little more colourful than us but we like their style

The further north we travel the colder it gets so the lower elevations are better for moderate temperatures, access to the peaks for us is not an option as they are all snow/ice covered. This is the time of year when all the mountain climbers come out to scale the peaks, surprisingly thousands of people attempt each year. The days are quite long as well, daylight is at 0430 with dark coming at 2130 well after our bedtime most days. Sleeping with daylight is not a problem after miles of hiking up and down almost vertical trails most days.

Petrified steam tubes created during the eruption and frozen solid in time

Our first encounter with the Cascades was Crater Lake, (triple WOW!!) the most splendid visual experience so far in the US, certainly equal to the Great Barrier Reef viewed from the air. This lake was created when Mt Mezama erupted and the whole peak collapsed down in the Earths crust 7,700 years ago. The base is still active and the lake is sealed because the lava flowing out is instantly cooled by the water. The small island in the lake is an active cinder cone which occasionally blasts out fine pumice layers maintaining its conical appearance.

Crater Lake, the blue is mesmerizing and looks like a painted surface

The photo says it all

The lake’s water level is controlled by adding melted snow (up to 40ft thick in winter), then reduced by evaporation and seepage through parts of the crater walls above a certain level. The net effect is a constant level. The deep blue colouration is due to extreme water clarity (140ft) created by a lack of any rivers entering or any pollutants from farming, mining, etc. The lake is a Federal National Park and as such is regulated to minimise human influences and so remains virtually pristine all year round. The lake never freezes due to the extreme depths (average depth is 1,148ft). A scuba dive here would be totally awesome, it would be like floating through space. Diving is not on the list of allowable activities and just to go for a boat ride requires booking in advance and then walking several miles down to access the boat.

Wizard Island is still active and rises up from the bottom as a cinder cone

The lake and Wizard Island again. Oh and us

Looking Northward

A boat passes by below

At an elevation of over 6,000 feet this lake and surrounding crater are in perfect balance and harmony, changes to any of the underlying factors which maintain this could have a disastrous effect to it, similar to our reef. We are so lucky that access via vehicle is available this time of year to most of the circumference roadway, despite some hold ups due to ongoing repairs and rebuilding. The views from all locations are stunning and unfortunately again photos cannot do it full justice. It’s certainly a place where blue and green should be seen with nothing in-between.

The lake in winter as depicted on a painting hanging over the main fire place in the Crater Lake Lodge Hall

Surprisingly from Crater Lake, snow covered Mt Shasta can still be seen way down to the south. Local Indian legend tells of a battle between the sky god Skell and the god of the underworld and spirit of the mountain Llao. The story goes that sometimes Llao came up from his home inside the Earth and stood on top Mt Mazama, during one of these visits he saw the Makalak chief’s daughter and fell in love with her. He promised her eternal life if she would return to his lodge below the mountains with him. When she refused he became angry and declared he would destroy her people with fire. In his rage he rushed up through the opening in his mountain, stood on top and began to hurl fire down on top of them. The mighty Skell took pity on the people and stood atop Mt Shasta to defend them. From their mountain tops the two chiefs waged a furious battle. They hurled red hot rocks as large as hills, they made the Earth tremble and caused great landslides of fire. The people fled south in terror. Two holy men offered to sacrifice themselves by jumping into the pit of fire on top of Llao’s mountain, Skell was moved by their bravery, and drove Llao back inside Mt Mazama. When the sun rose the next morning the great mountain was gone it had fallen in on Llao. All that remained was a large hole. Rain fell in torrents filling the hole with water. This now is Crater Lake.

Mount Mazama in its glory before collapsing

The local Makalak Indians have lived in this area throughout the past 10,000 years so have gained a vast knowledge that has been handed down through subsequent generations. It’s good to see that the old legends have lived on, they are certainly more interesting and entertaining than the raw scientific facts and who alone is so knowledgably to judge that they too are not fact? Wow did I just write that?? Hey Kimosabi pass me some more peyote!!

A Clarks Nutcracker, makes his home in the pine trees adjacent the lake

Next day we stopped off at a town called Bend, named after a bend in the local river, like most town’s not much thought goes into a town name, same as the street names, Main, Centre, 1st, 2^nd etc, etc, followed by East, West, North or South. Towns and streets laid out by Surveyors and Engineers without an ounce of imagination. It can be very confusing for a GPS and may have been partially responsible for Sam’s departure. Sorry to say but Samantha is no longer with us as she exceeded her 3^rd disciplinary warning and was sent on her way. She is no doubt wondering around aimlessly in cyberspace waiting for a VOICE COMMAND to guide her. Our new guide is a lovely lass called Michelle, who despite some initial teething problems with her New York accent, is handling our information, like, much better, like. She listens to Jen which is something new.

Oregon is called the Beaver State but we think it's more the Hippy State, no beavers unfortunately but plenty of lush flowers.

It was time for our 4,000 mile lube job. Wow, they went quick. To maintain our warranty we have to service the vehicle, change main engine oil and filter, check all fluid levels etc. every 4,000 miles. They have workshops here that specialise in lube jobs and can slip you in and out within minutes, very courteous and most obliging. We also got a free tyre (tire) inspection at a local tyre shop. The service stations here generally supply fuel only and try to charge for air to top-up your tyres. The compressors are so small you could fart stronger, and more air comes out than goes in during the process, besides we don’t pay for that stuff. We decided to head for the tyre shops with big compressors.

These guys were definitely worthy of listening to

Bend is famous for its microbreweries for both beer and wine, we opted for the beer first. We hit a couple of brewers in town for some afternoon sampling of their wares and gave it a good going over, but by the end of the evening and getting pretty pissed we were not impressed. The American taste is very different to ours and rather than a smooth finish in the mouth they prefer a course almost bitter finish with each mouthful. The Indian Pale Ale types were worst with only one to our liking, not good for two brewers and a combination of 12 different varieties. We decided not to bother with the wines, but opted for their burgers, again nothing compared to Jennyburgers. We did however sleep it off, parked up behind their brewery that night, dreaming of Jennybeers, our favourite.

The Worthy Brewery just not up to Aussie standard

Jen already looking blind before we got started at the Worthy Tasters

We headed west then, and began zigzagging north across the Cascades along narrow, winding and sometimes steep back roads checking out the snowclad tall volcanic peaks and remaining lava flows which also crisscrossed the roads. Many streams and waterfalls ran parallel with and under the roads we travelled, from rugged mountains to sheltered forests thicker than any of our tropical rainforests. Not only do they get a lot of rain, but also a lot of snow. Water is prolific in summer when the snow melts. Some of the mountains here have active glaciers all year round where the ice is constantly grinding the rocks under. This action accounts for the discolouration to the water in some of the rivers and lakes. It also carries down the rocks the size of boulders exposing the history of the glacier as it recedes slowly due to the effects of global warming. If you ever doubted it, don’t anymore, the evidence is clearly visible here. Glaciers are receding at an alarming rate with the possibility of reducing water flows in the region by more than half in the near future.

Sisters is a town famous for old time western facades. Because it was famous for nothing else a company offered a free $10,000 facade to every willing business in it's attempt to draw tourists. Guess it worked!

The 3 sisters peaks, a bit more ominous than our 3 sisters

It was when we were winding down a very narrow road on the side of a mountain deep within a forest, a motorbike rider with a pillion passenger coming in the opposite direction ventured way too close on a hairpin bend. To avoid hitting them we moved closer to the inside cutting, only to have the right side rear view mirror hit a rock outcrop, spinning it into the passenger window. The bike riders were on a lean inwards and couldn’t adjust so we only just averted a beheading or two, as the drivers mirror would have sheared one if not both off. We couldn’t stop or pull over, so had to continue about 3 mile down to the bottom of the hill to a cleared pull off and survey the damage. The bottom magnified mirror had been knocked out of its holder and the top mirror skewed, so after setting it straight we returned uphill in search of our mirror. We found it intact adjacent to the rock outcrop about 3m from a two dirty brown stains on the road. After struggling with a 20 point turn we proceeded back down the mountain again, reinstalled the mirror, adjusted the arm, then tightened the pivot grubscrew & all was good to go. Our first collision and hopefully our last.

An observatory built of lava rock, from it you can survey 3 separate lava flows, it's all broken up because the surface cooled rapidly while molten lava continued to flow beneath, it has subsequently suffered severe erosion from many feet of snow and ice melts each year. The water seeps down to an under ground lake which drains many miles away to the east.

Observing 1 of 3 lava flows in this area all within the last 1,700 years. This flow came from the still active cinder cone at the top of this photo

A hairy Marmot sneaking about in the lava beds

As we approached the Washington State border near Mount Hood, Oregon’s highest peak at 11,239ft and the Columbia River Valley the largest inland waterway system in the NW USA. This area is famous as a very productive fruit growing area. We noticed that many of the wild blackberry bushes along the roadside were fruiting with ripe berries. Wow, haven’t picked blackberries for 40 years. We thought about adopting our oyster gathering technique of feast and collect, but decided against it in case chemicals had been sprayed on them. We soon had a full container for washing and looked forward to our next dessert.

Brer John in the Briar Patch

Our night’s camp was deep in a forest beside a swiftly flowing river, clean clear water, so coming from a non-active glacier, we were out of the burn ban zone so made the most of the opportunity to warm up with a good blaze. Here we got stuck into our berries and ice cream, courtesy of a very cold freezer, a long way away from downtown Mesa, Arizona. We never get to eat ice cream on the boat so will make the most of this opportunity. Even better with fresh wild berries.

Stoking up the fire, no shortage of wood here just the axe too chop it. Made for a cosy evening

Mount Hood with glacier faces looking mighty cold

We headed to a town on the Columbia River called Hood River owing to the fact that it is the junction of the two rivers and it’s adjacent to Mt Hood. It’s famous as a wind and kite surfing hotspot and we saw why, as that weekend the town was hosting a yearly Cancer Fund Raising event. The wind was up and gusting in excess of 30 knots as it funnelled up the valley from the west. It’s common to get westerly squalls in excess of 60 knots here which would make for a few aching bones if the surfers took up the challenge. It was spectacular to watch as many spent more time in the air than on the water.