When we were in Ecuador we spent a memorable afternoon visiting Quilotoa – an immense lake formed thousands of years ago when the local volcano literally blew its top.
Today it’s the turn of Oregon’s equivalent: Crater Lake. Unfortunately we’re a couple of days into a storm and at 8000ft the cloud cover is so low we can’t see a thing. A great shame because according to the blurb in the visitors’ centre Quilotoa would fit into a little corner of Crater Lake.
Of course it would. Everything is bigger in the USA.
On a clear day it must be incredible so we promise ourselves we’ll return someday to see it in its full glory.
Another snippet we picked up at the visitors’ centre is that Crater Lake National Park is officially the ‘snowiest place in the contiguous states of America’ – so not including Alaska or Hawaii then (Hawaii never a contender I suspect).
Average annual snowfall here is more than 400 inches.
And given that most of it gets dumped between December and April we’re here during peak whiteout.
Fearless Steve at the wheel. Quite a challenge driving these roads.
A hundred miles up the road we come to the hipster enclave of Bend, Oregon a town with more coffee shops than Shoreditch, Soho and Williamsburg combined.
It’s been raining solidly for a week now so we splurge on a couple of nights in a motel. Much as we love the van it’s lovely to kip in a proper bed and have access to limitless hot water. It's also nice to be staying near these big chimneys.
Lots of decent bars here too. Monday is open-mic night and we’re treated to some pretty good live music and lots of dreadful stand-up.
Our next campsite is only 15 minutes from the motel yet it feels like we’re in a different universe; we're now on the banks of the Deschutes river, the sun is high in almost cloudless blue sky and we’re very, very happy.
No disrespect to Bend’s 300 coffee shops but this is the real reason we’re in Oregon.
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