Oregon II.I - Eclipse

We awoke at 6 to predawn clouds, checked our cameras, packed our bags, and by 7 we were racing off through the switchbacks to attempt to outrun the clouds filtering in from the coast, with a goal of finding higher and clearer ground by 9:13am when the eclipse was scheduled to hit. The further we drove, the worse it got, and we went from the "the sun is there, behind that cloud" to "the sun is somewhere thatway, but the fog makes it impossible to tell". And then, suddenly, with 20 minutes until the eclipse, we popped out of the vapor. We headed up a noname mountain outside Roseburg, and ascended out of the foggy homesteads onto nameless logging roads. Unfortunately, there was still a layer of clouds far above us. 

The views were incredible, and despite our distance from anything / despite the clouds, there were still families parked at all the logging cuts - which offered unrivaled visibility. It's like they designed logging cuts for great views, instead of, well, logging. We drove the rest of the mountain, hoping for a spot where we could align some break in the clouds with the sun, but we had no such luck. I admired the view - the gently roiling fog forming a sea across the valley beneath us, mirrored by the clouds above - which still blocked the sun DAFSDFSDFSDFSDF. 

Anyways, with absolutely no chance of seeing the eclipse and our driver in desperate need of a restroom, we headed off the mountain and back into the fog. Up until now, the day had remained a twilight, growing no brighter as time passed. From a 6am dawn to a partially eclipsed 9am, it was almost as if the day stood still. And now, as we approached annularity, the fog turned a dingy brown, and the world visibly darkened. Headlights became required, not just advisable. Driving through a town long past it's prime complemented the post apocalyptic feel, as though the nuclear winter were now a boring everyday inconvenience. At this point, we couldn't even tell where the sun was (or wasn't) without using stargazing apps [Sky Map is awesome if you don't have one].

[[Interruption: As I type this on the plane. there is a massive wildfire to the south. I think we're entering the Rockies but the plane tracker is down so that's just a guess. I'll research and get back to you.]]

Once the eclipse was over, the world became slightly less dingy, and we headed to a subway. Mostly for the restroom, but also for breakfast and decision making.  Now that we missed the eclipse, what next?

Well, in our ill-fated flight from the clouds we'd made it half way to Crater Lake, so what's stopping us from making a day of it? Literally nothing, and so we did. We resumed heading east through the Pacific rainforests, along the Umpqua river, and past immense burn-scars. They were as intriguing as the forests, revealing the geography and geology lying beneath the verdant carpet, and before we knew it we were headed steadily uphill.  Our first stop was Diamond Lake, beneath Diamond Point. We drove a lap of the lake and stopped at the general store for coffee and views. This whole part of the world is beautiful. Diamond Lake and the peaks surrounding it, Crater lake, Umpqua River, random waterfalls next to unnamed logging roads.... Everywhere is beautiful.

After diamond lake, we continued upward, hitting the pumice? desert. The climate is totally acceptable, we're not above the treeline, good rain, but the pumice is so thick that nothing can grow there. [I left a note to look up the depth of the pumice, since I thought it would be cool to say "16 feet deep!" or whatever. It's 200+ feet deep. And that doesn't even count whatever regolith was blasted away in the initial blast, this is miles of 200'-300' debris from the continuing explosion. I should be used to it, but volcanos play by different orders of magnitude] And that was my first hint that this volcano was a beast. Well, second after the name "Crater Lake".

Crater Lake was just a typical volcano until 7700 years ago, smoking occasionally, bulging strangely but slowly, normal everyday volcano things. And then one day almost eight millennia ago - still within communal memory for the indigenous peoples, it went full send.  Just like Pompeii, it blew the entire peak into the stratosphere, and continued to expel ash and magma for OVER A MONTH until it had expelled 27 CUBIC MILES of material. I did a double take when Alex read out that fact, that's not a unit of measurement I typically have occasion to use. Fun fact, that's about 100 km^3. (Note to editor-Brice: Look up if they find volcanic material in coos bay [Yes]). And much like Kilauea (which was a month ago), that the magma eventually sank down, finding alternate escapes routes, causing the entire caldera to sink down. And since then, fueled only by snow-melt coming off the remnants of the crater rim since we're too high for rain at this latitude, the crater has filled to a depth of 2000', forming a beautiful lake.

What I didn't know ahead of time is the volcano wasn't quite done. While it's no longer shattering mountains, it still managed to push through the lake and form a new cone, entirely within the lake. A miniature volcano, within a lake, within a mega volcano. And that, that is the whimsical sight that greeted us when we crested the summit.  They'd already seen it, but I found it adorably stunning, which is a weird combo.

We drove the entire perimeter of the lake, switching back inside and outside the rim, above and below the snowline, stopping frequently to admire the views. I deeply appreciate that - much like Hawaii - there are always a few unofficial trails that reach out to the best overlooks, where you can look straight down and enjoy it a bit more intensely. At least, if you're weird like some of us.   At one such spot Alex launched a snowball towards the lake and into the void.... which was followed by another snowball from another off-piste tourist hidden behind trees a hundred yards away. And then we saw his waterbottle skiing down the slope before disappearing over the edge and impacting several seconds later.  "It's gone bro" "Awww.... I liked that one" 

We went to the gift shop, as Astro needed a sticker for her mini, yet another park unlocked. The eclipse had brought the crowds along with the clouds, and the park was slammed. The lot was a cutthroat mess of cars desperately stalking pedestrians... We got a spot through sheer luck, and they metered us into the giftshop/cafe a few at a time. I wasn't going to go in at all, too many people, but they had a penny smasher. So I reverted to my five year old self and begged grown women for $0.51. Great success, No Ragrets.

This overlook was also on the side of the lake with the volcano-island (which is charmingly named "Wizard Island" for it's resemblance to Merlin's hat), so we spent a while admiring it with the monoscope ("I have a monocle in my car, want me to grab it" "WHY DO YOU HAVE  MANACLES IN YOUR CAR?") Fun story: In the 1930s some dude set the whole island on fire as a promotional stunt. What the FASDF. The 1930's were so much fun. While we had the monoscope out, we also searched for the old man, which is a tree that's been floating, roots-up, around the lake for over a hundred years. No luck, but still fun to look.

After completing our circumnavigation of the lake we headed back to house. Ish. We had a few minor detours, including checking out the Umpqua river up in person (and their coffee shop), and then hiking down a long-unused dirt road, over a stream, and all over a cabin that's been abandoned for at least half a century. Not at all a noteworthy cabin, but it's always fun to tromp through the woods trying to decode the terrain and foliage to follow a road that was overgrown before any of us were alive.

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[Postscript: The Dolores Range burn in the San Juan National Forest was a proscribed burn of just over 1000 acres, and was conducted without incident. Luckily(?) I had a lot of time to research when we stopped in St Louis to swap for plane that wasn't leaking oil :/  After reviewing a dozen maps and searching voraciously I found a single twitter post warning of the burn.]