USA trip 2017. So I flew into San Francisco on July 6th. with three weeks away stretching ahead of me. I stayed for 5 nights with my dear friends James and Komoot who live in the Sunset District.
I revisited some of my old haunts like North Beach and James drove us most days to a bunch of places round the Bay Area and beyond that were new to me. Curiously San Francisco can be chilly and damp in summer when the fogs roll in, although the weather was mostly glorious. Further inland the temperatures were baking to say the least.
Then on the evening of July 11th. I boarded the Amtrak Coast Starlight in Oakland to travel overnight to Klamath Falls, Oregon. It was due in at 8am but arrived 5 hours late due to a death on the tracks when it hit someone near Sacremento.
One of the interesting things about traveling long distance on the train is that people start talking to one another, particularly in the observation car. For example when I took this photo I was chatting to a systems analyst from San Diego and a couple from Louisiana who breed stallions.
The depot of the Klamath Shuttle Company is by the Amtrak station. This is the view across the road which gives you an idea of the neighborhood.
The regular shuttle leaves at 930am every morning and takes about an hour to get to the Crater Lake National Park. That was long gone but I saw a guy working in the engine shop who turned out to be the owner and he arranged for a shuttle to run just me up there!
The helpful and friendly nature of people in rural America is something I encountered time and time again as was the case last year when I headed for Shasta.
This is Crater Lake. It's big, it's blue. 6 miles across, 2000 feet deep; it's the deepest in America and the purest because the water is pure snow melt.
It's got an island in it called Wizard Island; it's shape somewhat resembles a wizard's hat which I assume is how it came to be named.
The sides of the crater slope down very steeply to the water. In fact there is only one point on the far North of the lake where you can walk down to the water's edge.
There's a very scenic trail around the Western edge of the rim, but you wouldn't want to stumble: it's about a thousand feet down.
Looking away from the lake on all sides is a vast landscape of valleys, heights and forests.
Best laid plans! The temperature was in the 30s but most of the back country was still under thick snow when I arrived. Usually it mostly melts during the course of June but there had been exceptional snowfall last winter.
This is the beginning of the Dutton Creek trailhead near the rim, which I had in mind as my starting point. So I hiked a few miles downhill on the highway and stayed on a walk-in campsite for backpackers for four nights. 5 bucks a night well spent!
The view out the window of my tent. It was in a wooded section of a mainstream campsite where Americans take their leisure. Apart from me the backpackers were all guys and gals doing the Pacific Crest Trail which passes nearby. They would stay a night then move on.
The PCT starts at the Mexican border and runs to the Canadian border needing 4 or 5 months to complete in its entirety. Some I spoke to were doing it in sections but others were "thru hikers" doing it from start to finish and had been on the trail for 2 or 3 months by that point. Impressive.
Amazingly within a few days the snow largely melted and the trails became navigable. The soil is volcanic ash and pumice so the water just went straight through it leaving dry dusty paths.
This is the PCT heading North. Keep going in this direction and you reach Canada. Turn around and you can follow it to Mexico. So I upped sticks and followed it out into the back country.
I camped in a clearing off the PCT for 5 nights. The facilities were a bit basic...
... but there was plenty of freezing cold water!
And here is the reason I came. After the snow melts there is an immediate and spectacular eruption of wildflowers.
More to follow. I took many photos and they will filter through in upcoming entries as I start to work my way through them.