Into Oregon

We’re sitting in the van, in the rain, near what I think is Hills Creek Lake, just south of Oakridge. I’m not 100% sure though. We’ve come over the top of the mountains from the south on an unpaved road, with only a national road atlas to go by. We’re definitely in Oregon, anyway. I thought that this atlas would only show the major roads (Oregon is about 12 inches top to bottom on the paper), but when it comes down to it on the ground, there really are no other roads here. It’s pretty wild. The atlas shows when roads are paved or not, and there’s not a lot of options between gravel and the interstate freeway.

So anyway, we had our second night in Lassen and then headed back into the park on Sunday to have a look at Bumpass’s Hell hot springs area. Now that’s more like it; lots of big, bubbling pools, steam and hot ground. Definitely tops my list of geothermal sites. No molten lava though. I might end up having to go to Hawaii for that.

 

We had an early start, and were out of the park by mid-morning. As we dropped back down into the valley towards the I5 (Interstate #5) the temperature soared. Hot, sticky vinyl seats, sunburnt driving arm, windows open for breeze, dehydrating more and more every minute… We stopped off to buy provisions and a few things on the “left it at home” list- stuff like a chopping board, cutlery, washing up bowl.

Onward. Northbound we rounded Mount Shasta, leaving it to starboard in a rush of gasoline fumes and noise. It was one of the places I’d wanted to spend some time around, but with our tighter schedule due to van repairs, we had to move on.

 

Lava Beds National Monument seemed like a good place to stop for the night, so we headed off the highway and soon found ourselves buzzing along a gravel track, kicking up a right dust storm behind us. The road went on. And on. And on. Hmmn. Our fuel gauge was hitting the red and we were still deep in wilderness. Not ideal. At a cross roads just 4 miles away from the Lava Beds area we found a “road closed” sign which meant that we had to take a longer way round, and meant we’d miss the stuff we’d come for, including lava tubes that you can explore in. And it meant that we were touch-and-go with fuel. We emptied the 2-gallon spare into the tank and crossed our fingers. Eventually we crept into the small town of Tulelake, where the local store was still open and also had some gas. Result!

 

We trucked on, over the Oregon border, up past Klamath lake and found a nice quiet spot just off the road on a “winter recreation area”. I couldn’t quite figure out what this was; a large expanse of concrete with a winter shelter at one end. I think it’s where people park in winter before heading into the back country on show shoes, skis or snow mobiles. No snow around there now.

Wow, so that was all just yesterday.

This morning we continued north to Crater Lake National Park – Oregon’s only National Park. The ring round around the lake was shut; so we had to continue on the main road which did run along the western rim for a bit so we did get to see the awesome views. The deepest lake in the USA at over 500m, and also the clearest water; they say algae grows over 400 feet down! It was cold up there though; still snow drifts metres deep, and frost on the windward side of the trees.

  

We only stopped for a few photos, then headed on to Toketee falls. Toketee means “pretty” in Chinook; they certainly were. The walkway stopped high above the plunge pool, I hopped over the barrier and scrambled down to the water for a very quick, very fresh swim. Such a beautiful spot; shame it wasn’t warmer.

Next was a spot supposedly just 4 miles up the road; Umpqua hot springs. After at least half an hour and many miles into the mountains later, we still hadn’t found it. On the way back down we spotted a sign in marker pen pointing up a road we’d not yet tried. Someone trying to keep the hot springs secret!

Not far down the bumpy gravel road a chap was sitting at the side of the road with a broken motorbike. His chain had come off and a load of links were bent. I stopped, we had a wrestle with some tools to the point where it looked like he could at least limp back to the main road. We left his bike by the side of the track, he hopped in the van and we headed up to the springs together. A bunch of folk were living there full time, in tents by the river. The springs themselves were 4 or 5 separate pools perched on the edge of a cliff, the hot water feeding the top pool. Each pool further down was a little cooler than the one above it. Nice to have a soak for a bit.

Jim (with the motorbike) decided that he could probably make it back to Eugene to get a new chain on his own, so we left him to it. He ended up leaving his towel in the van; luckily he’s from Vancouver so we’ll drop it off in a few days’ time.

Just half an hour later we were on gravel tracks again, heading north, aiming for Oakridge. This time we made it all the way over the mountains without any closed roads or fuel scares, and here we are by the side of Hills Creek Lake, bellies full of steak sandwich. I’m pretty sure it’s Hills Creek Lake. We’ll find out tomorrow!