Earth Fire Water

Is that Bigfoot? Like for real? Sasquatch does live in Oregon, right? Those coniferous forests are perfect homes for these legendary creatures. Maybe we'd get lucky. Maybe we already did.

Nope! This one's unfortunately not real. He's made of wood. But since we are on the subject and we haven't really started this blog post in earnest yet, I do believe in bigfoot. I know that might make me sound a little crazy but I'm half convinced I've seen one in real life. And hey, I've already admitted I believe in aliens in another post on this blog so why not double down. For what it's worth I believe in ghosts and some sort of afterlife too. All nuts, I know. But I'm completely serious. Completely.

Back to my Bigfoot encounter. It was in the early 1990s and my friend Nick and I were driving down to Philadelphia from Syracuse, NY where we were just hanging out on summer break working in the Salt City. When we were somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania on Interstate 81, something dark and furry (or was it hairy?) crossed the road in front of us and climbed over the barrier in the middle of the highway. Climbed!!!! Nick said it was a dog but there's absolutely no way. Dogs don't climb. I think it was a Sasquatch. Either that or a bear. I think Sasquatch sounds better. I believe. Completely.

Other than the wooden one above, we didn't find any unexplained creatures in the woods of Oregon. But we did deliberately head into the forest as part of a planned day out to see the Columbia River and the trails and waterfalls that make up the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, an historic 50 mile or so stretch of nature connected by roadways and featuring stop after stop of gorgeous hikes and photo opportunities of the Oregon wild at its finest. Who could miss this? Plus...Bigfoot. You never know.

First no boats on Crater Lake and now this? Oregon and nature don't like me for some reason.

With the help of my Lonely Planet Washington / Oregon guidebook, I had the day planned out perfectly. It was going to be awesome. I figured a couple of stops at some of the more easily accessible waterfalls like the 250 foot high Latourell Falls and almost as high Elowah Falls along with a look and a hike to the top of (it's only a mile...) Multnomah Falls, the signature waterfall along the Columbia River Gorge and apparently the most visited outdoor site in the entire state of Oregon. It was shaping up to be a maximum bang for minimum effort day. Well, minimum effort if you ignore the mile hike to the top of the 620 foot high Multnomah; that one would be a lot of climbing up, although less extreme than the Cleetwood Cove trail we tackled (and conquered) a couple of days earlier at Crater Lake.

Like all prepared travelers, I double checked that we knew exactly where we were headed the night before so we'd be as efficient as we could be and maybe we'd be able to sneak in an afternoon trip to a Portland brewery. And that's when the news that wasn't in my Lonely Planet guide hit me: there was a massive wildfire throughout the Gorge in the fall of 2017 and pretty much everything was closed, even Multnomah, although we would still be able to see those falls from the parking lot in the center of I-84. Crushed!

Last fall the wildfires in the Napa Valley north of San Francisco got a ton of national media attention and I guess deservedly so. After all, here was a major populated area of the United States at risk of getting burned to the ground after an extremely dry summer. More likely, the coverage was related to the popularity of the Valley as a tourist destination. Turns out there were other fires raging (as there are every year) that posed just as much trouble, but maybe not to as many permanent residents in as heavily visited an area of the country.

While those fires were threatening wineries in northern California last fall, the Eagle Creek Fire was doing damage to the forests along the Oregon-Washington border. Only more so. The fire (called the Tubbs Fire) that burned Napa was the most destructive in California history; it burned for about a month and took out almost 37,000 acres. Eagle Creek? Three months and 50,000 acres, although six months after it was contained there were still some areas smoldering.

We walked by lots of burned wood on our hikes through the Columbia River Gorge last month.

If there's one personal awareness that got raised in a major way on this trip, it was about wildfires. These things are common as anything out west and they put people's lives in danger on a regular basis, and I don't just mean the folks whose houses are in the ways of the blaze. Over on the east coast of the United States, we get some coverage but either it's just about destinations popular with tourists or I just don't pay that much attention to it and I'm honestly not sure which one it is.

In addition to tracking the Tubbs Fire last October (since we'd already made reservations for our Napa trip) and having our schedule seemingly wrecked by the Eagle Creek Fire, we drove by a couple of wildfires on our way by and through Lassen Volcanic National Park towards our destination of Redding for an overnight stop. And by "drove by" I mean we probably passed within two or three miles of a fire burning just south of Lassen. We actually saw the helicopters fighting the fires from above and traveled past fire-retardant sprayed as fire breaks on the surface of the Earth.

That maybe 15 minutes of driving that brought us close enough to the smoke to worry was a little alarming. Some of the alarm was for our personal safety but most of it was for the teams of firefighters we saw posted along the roads we drove that afternoon. Here we are on vacation driving in a car along fire free roads looking at smoke rising a couple of miles away. These men and women are standing along the side of the road waiting for the fire to get to them so they can try to put it out. Crazy brave.

Some of these fires are unavoidable. They are started by lightning strikes in areas that haven't had water for months. Others are way avoidable. While the Tubbs Fire was probably caused by some sort of electrical sparking (which is maybe in the unavoidable category?), the Eagle Creek Fire was apparently started by a 15 year old playing with fireworks. Crazy when we do stuff like this that makes firefighters waiting for fires to get to them. Even if they never come face to face with the flames they are still loaded with heavy gear in 80 or 90 degree heat.

With Latourell and Elowah Falls out of commission, it was time to figure out an alternate game plan. 

Bridal Veil Falls.

An essential source of planning a trip to the Columbia River Scenic Gorge is the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service's website for the area. The Forest Service is charged with managing the Gorge, in case that previous sentence made no sense. When venturing into any area subject to wildfires, it's always important to know where to go for updated information. This site seemed to be it for our day out and as annoyed as we were at the closures, it's a really good thing we checked before heading out. Based on a quick check of the site the night before, we swapped out Latourell Falls for Starvation Creek Falls (a state park) and subbed out Elowah with Bridal Veil Falls (another state park). We decided to keep Multnomah on our agenda and settle for a viewing from the parking lot or maybe the Lodge closer to the Falls, which we had read was still open.

The point of this day out was to get an appreciation of the Columbia River. I've seen the Mississippi River on a number of occasions and have never been impressed. Yes, the Mississippi is the largest river in the United States but the context around it lacks romance; it's just all flat on both sides. I hoped the Columbia would be different, especially considering we were heading into a gorge flanked by mountains up to 4,000 feet in height at some points along its 80 mile length.

The point of the day was not necessarily to go view a bunch of waterfalls, despite our original and revised itineraries featuring three falls each. I've seen Niagara and I've seen Vic Falls and I know that I am not necessarily a waterfalls guy. But sometimes the power of water falling over a cliff of some sort is incredibly impressive (read: Niagara Falls from the Canadian side). Maybe we'd see something good.

Multnomah Falls. Definitely the falls highlight of the day.

I think we had two hits and a miss on our waterfall agenda. I think this after we did it, not before, of course. 

First of all, Multnomah Falls is spectacular. This two-tier waterfall dropping more than 600 feet was definitely the most impressive falls we saw on the day. We also got lucky here. Not only was the Lodge open as we had read but they had also just opened the bridge that crosses right in front of the upper section that very day that we visited. The trail that I had hoped to take to the top of the Falls was not open, however. Too bad, because continuing on despite what looked like a very steep trail in parts promised more amazing views of the Falls.

We managed to talk to some Forest Service staff on the bridge who felt that the earliest some of the closed trails would be open might be this fall, that is if they ever opened again. She was not just speaking about Multnomah but about all the trails in the Gorge. Seems like it's going to be a while before this place is back to normal, whatever that might be. I did note right before publishing this post that Latourell Falls is at least partially accessible.

Multnomah was the centerpiece of our day. Quite literally. It was the middle stop between the two state parks we had selected. Before we stopped at Multnomah we headed all the way east past it on I-84 to visit Starvation Creek State Park. This Park is about as uncomplicated a place as you can get. It simply links the exit for the park to the following exit a mile further east down the interstate. There's a paved path running up along the banks above the highway all the way.

Starvation Falls. Or at least what we saw when we first got there.

The Falls are just to the right after you start your hike. There's a smaller path leading to them just past the interpretive signage which describes the origin of the Park's name, which quite honestly sounds somewhat sinister. Well, it turns out nobody ever starved at Starvation Creek, at least not on record. The name is derived from one of two incidents (there's some debate as to which gave the Park its name) where people almost starved. The most plausible seems to be during the winter of 1884-1885 where two Union Pacific trains ended up stranded for while, forcing deliveries of food to the stranded passengers. I guess Starvation Creek sounds a lot more dramatic than Almost Starvation Creek. Although I don't fully get why the people delivering food didn't just rescue the passengers.

We took one look at the falls here at the beginning of our hike, decided there was not much to look at and kept going. On our way back we decided to take the right (which on the way back is a left) to get a better look and see if there was more than our first glance indicated. It's a good thing we did. The first falls we saw weren't the Starvation Creek Falls at all. Walk a few hundred feet up the path and you'll get to the real falls and they are pretty fantastic at an overall height of about 225 feet. The view is somewhat obscured but considering the distance from the parking lot, this is about as gorgeous a waterfall as you can see with as short a walk as this from where you left your car. Definitely worth the trip.

The real Starvation Creek Falls. Seen between two charred trees.

The third and final waterfall we visited was Bridal Veil Falls, which is west of Multnomah on the way back to Portland. This was the shortest waterfall (in height) with the longest trek. I've included a picture of these falls but honestly, I think I was just all waterfall-ed out at this point and if I wasn't making effort to seek out something more spectacular than the first two, I wasn't particularly interested. Despite my complaining about the length of the hike here, it's just one mile round trip and doesn't take that long. If you wanted to stay closer in to Portland (assuming that's where you were staying), I would advise you hit Bridal Veil on the way out to Multnomah rather than on the way back. 

Of course, if you wanted to make a quicker day of things, you could just skip the longest part of our day in the Columbia River Gorge and skip Starvation Creek Falls. After all, it is a full 20 plus miles further out than even Multnomah. That's perhaps a long way to go for just one fall that isn't quite fully visible. If you did, though, you would miss why I went out there in the first place.

Well, kind of. We went all the way out to Starvation Creek because we hoped it would be beyond the reach of the Eagle Creek Fire. It wasn't. We went out in the first place to get a good look at the Columbia River, not necessarily a bunch of waterfalls, and heading all the way as far east as we did got us that, although we didn't know that would happen before we set out.

About a quarter to a half mile into the one mile (each way) hike at Starvation Creek Falls, someone has created a makeshift path up the hillside on the left side of the trail. There's a tree there that the path winds around which serves as a handhold to clamber up the hill. It was up there that we found what I thought was the best view of the Columbia. And it was pretty awesome.

Our best view of the Columbia. Going off path sometimes is the right way to go.

I have never been particularly impressed with rivers. I've seen pictures that people have painted in art galleries or shops of river scenes and I've always wondered why. To me, they have never been that fascinating. The Columbia at this point where we viewed it was different. It's not as wide as the Mississippi. It's not even as wide as itself about 20 or 30 miles to the west. But I've never seen a river sited as gorgeously as I have on that hill on the side of the trail at Starvation Creek. It was the width of the river combined with the mountains on either side and the evergreen trees growing on about every square inch not intruded upon by man.  

It seems strange and a lot melodramatic to me to write an entire (long) blog post about one view of one river but that's really honestly mostly what this one is about. That picture above. And maybe the one below also taken at Starvation Creek Falls just a bit closer to the parking lot. We stopped at a couple of places on our way back to Portland to see if we could duplicate the view we had in these two pictures but with zero success, not even at the Cascade Locks Waterfront Grill, where you can find an amazing but not quite equal unobstructed view of the Columbia while eating lunch at your table next to a wooden carved Sasquatch. Seriously, I'd hit that place up if I were planning another trip down the Columbia.

Admittedly, Multnomah Falls is just amazing. And if we could have hiked to the top this whole post might have been about something totally different. But we couldn't. In a lot of ways this trip brought a lot of things together that I've written about like powerful rivers and beautiful waterfalls and the perils of wildfires along with some things that I haven't written about like the First Nations people like the Coast Salish and global warming and its effect on the snow melt that forms the waterfalls like Multnomah and Bridal Veil and Starvation Creek and all the others off limits which we couldn't visit. Sometimes days out when we travel end up being about a lot of things but what's most memorable is sometimes crystalized in a single image or two. 

This was not the day out we planned. I thought I had everything figured out perfectly before we left. I can't imagine that my original itinerary would have gotten us a better day. I certainly wouldn't have seen my favorite view of the Columbia or got this close to finding Bigfoot, even if he did end up being wooden. Sometimes the best things for us on vacation are our plans getting turned a little bit upside down. Don't misunderstand me, I don't want this to happen too often. But this day, it worked out.

One more view of the Columbia. Less river but perhaps better framed.

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How We Did It

All three waterfalls that we visited are accessible right off I-84 and all are reachable within about an hour or less drive from Portland, assuming you don't get stuck in rush hour traffic (or non-rush hour traffic) on the way out of town.

Starvation Creek State Park is open year round on a day use (meaning no overnight camping) basis. You can get to it by taking Exit 55 off I-84 eastbound (but not westbound) which serves nothing more than the Park parking lot. The falls are a very quick walk if you don't ignore their existence like we did at first. You can exit the parking lot back on to I-84 East; head back to Portland (if that's where you are coming from) by traveling a mile further to Exit 56 and turning around.

Multnomah Falls is also open year round, although the Visitor Center is only open from 9 am to 5 pm each day. There is a good sized parking lot right in the center of I-84 which is accessible from the eastbound and westbound lanes. The parking lot was packed when we were there but people were leaving pretty regularly. Apparently there are gates that close when the lot is full. We stood in a line maybe 15 cars long and got a spot after just 15 minutes or so. The Falls are visible after a quick walk under the eastbound lanes of the interstate.

Bridal Veil Falls State Scenic Viewpoint is open year round and also on a day use basis like Starvation Creek. Take Exit 28 off I-84 and travel about 3/4 of a mile or so on the Historic Columbia River Scenic Highway to get to the very small parking area. Follow the signs to the Falls from the parking lot.

The best part about all this: it's all free!

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Mount Mazama

As of July 2018, there are 60 true National Parks in the United States. Not properties managed by the National Park Service like National Monuments or National Historical Parks or something like that; I mean real full unqualified National Parks. Some folks, I imagine, are out to see them all. If they are, they better spend a lot of time in Alaska, which has eight of the 60.

My own National track record is not that stellar. In my first 45 years on this planet, I'd logged a grand total of nine. I can give myself a little bit of a pass on this one since I spent my first 11 years in a complete other country, but I feel there was more than enough time to see double digits National Parks after I moved here in 1979. When I started writing this blog, I didn't think much about boosting my Parks total, although I have (I've added ten since I turned 45). But if I'd thought at that time about where I'd like to go in the future I would probably have rolled out Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Crater Lake in Oregon and Yosemite in California.

Last year, I made it to Carlsbad Caverns. I took the easy way (the elevator) down to the caves and then took the hard way (my two feet) out. Last month, I added Crater Lake to my parks visited list.

Crater Lake National Park sits towards the southern end of the Cascades, a mountain range that extends all the way from northern California in the south to just over the Canadian border into British Columbia. The mountains form part of the Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanoes that stretches all the way from the tip of Chile up north to the Bering Sea and back down the globe again to New Zealand. 

This Ring of Fire thing sounds scary and it really pretty much is: most (like 80-90%) of the largest volcanic eruptions over the last 12,000 years or so on this planet have occurred in the Ring of Fire. Here at home in the continental United States, the only volcanic eruptions in the last 200 years have been in the Ring of Fire. And they have both been in the Cascades. Those would be the 1914 through 1921 explosions that rocked Lassen Peak in northern California and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington.

Mount Shasta seen from the side of I-5 on the way to Oregon.

As a mountain range, the Cascades are pretty impressive. They boast two 14ers, or mountains over 14,000 feet at their tops, in Washington state's Mount Rainier (14,411 feet) and Mount Shasta in California (14,180 feet) as well as one (Washington's Mount Adams) topping out at more than 12,000. They used to have a second 12,000 foot mountain in Mount Mazama, but in 2018 that peak sits at just a little over 8,150. So what happened to Mount Mazama?

Well, about 7,700 years ago or so, Mount Mazama, which coincidentally sits right about where Crater Lake is now, started to develop a problem. Down beneath the belly of the mountain, an underground lake of lava was forming. As this lake bubbled away, it generated expanding gas that ultimately needed to find a way out to the surface of the Earth. It was only really a matter of when, not if, Mazama would erupt.

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened and when the eruption occurred, the gas escaped any way it could. Some of the explosion blew pumice and ash out the top of the mountain but the gas made its way out in other vents and fissures further down Mazama, more or less perforating the surface of the peak in a circular pattern. The main explosion was massive by the way. It is estimated that there was enough ash discharged to cover the entire state of Oregon with a layer 8" in depth. If you can remember the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, this one was likely 40 times as powerful.

What happens to a mountain that finds itself shredded by escaping gas and sitting on top of a void that used to be filled with molten rock? Well, in the case of Mount Mazama, it collapsed in on itself, losing a mile or so of height and leaving a crater about a mile deep and five miles across. Goodbye Mount Mazama; hello, Crater Lake!

The obligatory national park panorama shot from the iPhone. Had to do it.

Now, the Lake didn't exactly appear instantly once Mount Mazama had collapsed. Sure the shape of the bowl was pretty much taken care of but there was no water. The Lake would fill over the next few centuries (yes, centuries!). Hey, it takes a while to fill a hole with five trillion gallons of water even in a place with an average annual snowfall of 533 inches. Remember, there are no rivers flowing into this part of the world; just moments before its creation there was a mountain in the exact same spot. Fortunately for us, the crater was mostly watertight, which I find amazing.

The Lake today is fully filled. It leaks, but only enough to keep the water level stable. It is the deepest lake in the United States. It's also the clearest, the result of all the water coming from rain and snowmelt. There are no rivers dumping running water into it and there are almost no creatures in there to make any waves or stir up silt at the bottom. There are fish in the lake by the way. How do fish get into a lake caused by a collapsed volcano? Let's come back to that.

Oh, and by the way, it's absolutely gorgeous. The water is about the deepest, clearest blue color you can imagine and the air is clear and the place is pretty well isolated so there's just about no noise or light pollution or anything to take your attention away from the Lake. It really is a spectacular sight.

Want to go? Get ready for a drive. Being pretty much in the middle of nowhere takes a while to get there. We drove up from Redding, California and it took us about four hours. From Portland, it's probably a little more than that and from Eugene let's figure two to two and a half hours. There's a pretty good series of roads and interstate highways to the north and south where you can move along a pretty good clip, but get close to the park and you'll start to slow down as the roads become smaller and twistier and generally without guardrails.

Want to stay near or in the Park? Sure you do! The historic Crater Lake Lodge is right on the rim of the Lake and there are a few campsites and cabins inside the Park's boundaries. If you don't want to stay inside the Park or don't book early enough, you might be driving a while to get in and out. The nearest true hotel or motel is a 30 mile drive to the north and east in Chemult.

Can't plan ahead or thinking of showing up in the off season to avoid the rush? There is no off season. Off season is winter. And it lasts some years from early September to early July. In those extended winters, you can't even get to the lake in a car because the roads are closed under feet and feet of snow. Can't imagine what 533 inches of snow looks like? Check out the height of the poles on either side of the road in the photograph below. Those sticks mark the edges of the roads for plows. They are maybe 12 to 15 feet high each. It snows a lot in the mountains!

We timed our visit for the last week of June, right about the time the boats start taking folks for rides on the Lake if it's not still extended winter at Crater Lake. We figured a little hiking, a boat ride, maybe a bear or elk encounter from afar (or even better yet from the car) and a nice couple of evenings chilling at the Crater Lake Lodge with a beer or two looking at the Lake before hitting the sack for a very quiet night. Yeah, some of it worked out that way, but not entirely.

There was for sure hiking. Plenty of hiking. You could spend days hiking if that's your thing. We went walking through the woods and to some waterfalls and to see the strange rock formations called The Pinnacles and up towards one of the higher peaks around the Lake (note I said up towards, not up to the top of). We also hiked to the edge of the Lake. Before I got to the Park, I didn't know you could swim in the Lake; if I had I might have taken some trunks with me and taken a plunge.

There was also some sitting lakeside with beers. The Lodge has a fantastic extended front porch with rocking chairs and drink and food service. It is sort of romantic looking out over the water while sipping a beer watching the sun set to the west and realizing that it's way colder in the mountains than it was in the Napa Valley where you were just a couple of days before. Bring warm clothes, even in summer.

But the boat ride? And the wildlife spotting? Well, not so much. We get lucky so often on our trips to wherever we go so it's difficult to complain too much but I guess you could say our luck abandoned us at Crater Lake a little. There are bear and elk and porcupines and mountain lions in the Park. We didn't see any of those. We did see some marmots and a few Clark's nutcrackers and one or two (surprise! it's not a chipmunk) golden-mantled ground squirrels. I'd never seen these animals in the wild before. Now I have.

I get the wildlife being shy. We're not in a zoo. The fact that the animals can go where they please (including places we can't) is both a blessing and a curse. It's wonderful to see creatures free in their natural environment but a little disappointing when they don't come out and show themselves. But the boats not working? That was a little more than disappointing.

Yep, the boats were not working. None of them. Both broken. Mechanical difficulty. I came all the way across the country to take a ride on Crater Lake in a boat and nothing. We were told the news just about the moment we walked into the Steel Visitor Center on the south drive in a very cheery way. No apologies. No sympathy. Just they are not working. Have a nice day! 

Killer!

Marmot. Nutcracker. Ground squirrel.

Enough complaining. Probably. There were some highlights. I swear. 

In the summer months when it's not extended winter, you can drive all around the perimeter of the Lake on the East and West Rim Drives. It's about a 33 mile or so long loop. Along the way there are spots to hike, picnic or just get out and gaze at the still, blue water and the coniferous forests of the Cascades that are all around you when you get out of sight of the Lake. It's worth making the complete drive. The Lake changes as you move around it and if you've gone all that way, you may as well get as much looking at it in before you leave.

There are two islands in the Lake itself, one (Wizard Island) big enough for a little mini-hike (if the boats are working, that is) and one not so much bigger than a large boat or ship (hence the Phantom Ship name given to it). Wizard Island (which was actually formed by a later eruption after the collapse of Mount Mazama) is visible on most of the drive. Phantom Ship is not; make sure you stop at the right spots.

One of the more fascinating stops we made was at Cloudcap Overlook on the east side of the rim. There we found a stand of flag trees, so named because their branches are all on one side of the trunk, as if they are a series of mini flags blowing stiff in the breeze. That is, in fact, exactly what happened to these trees. The wind is so fierce in winter in that area of the Park that the trees are blown to grow in just one direction; literally all the branches are growing on the east side of the tree which is the direction the wind blows in the colder months.

Scenes from Rim Drive: Wizard Island...

Phantom Ship...

and a stand of flag trees. Finally a picture without the Lake in it!

Hikes are funny things sometimes. Walking from one spot to another and then back to where you started is sometimes an odd thing to do. Every once in a while you'll do or see nothing that merits the kind of effort you made to make it there and back again.  The one hike we made that clearly didn't fall into this category was the Cleetwood Cove Trail, which is the only path that leads down into the bowl of the old volcano to the surface of the Lake.

The Park warns you quite explicitly that the Cleetwood Cove Trail is a "strenuous hike" and the numbers are sure to scare off some folks. A little more than a mile each way on a path that looks like it's about almost straight down in some spots with a total change in elevation of 700 feet. That's like walking up the stairs in a 65 or 70 story building, only with more walking. But it's the only way down to the Lake. We had to go. And it was totally worth it despite the lack of board-able powered craft at the bottom to get us an up close and personal look at Wizard Island, the Phantom Ship and the walls of the collapsed crater.

The way down is pretty easy. The reflections and pollen patterns on the still water were fascinating on the descent, especially since the closer you got to the bottom of the slopes, the deeper you could see into the water. It really is super clear. I also appreciated the reward of dipping my hands into the water and getting a different perspective on what it's like from the bottom of the bowl. This is not necessarily some life-changing experience. Every once in a while it's good to slow down for 24 hours, even if 24 hours is about all I can stand slowed down at any one time.

The trek back up? No fascinating patterns. No watching the (again, inoperable) boats getting closer. No cool reward at the end of the walk. Just targeting the next pocket of shade and taking it slow. Really slow. In the end, we got right back to where we started and richer for the experience. Strenuous? OK, I can see it but I think it's erring on the side of caution on the Park's part. The Lake is a draw and walking down this one trail is the only way down. I'm sure the Park wants to make sure they scare some folks off who might need an emergency rescue. After all, nobody wants that.

Scenes from the bottom: I love how perfect or near-perfect all the reflections are in the photographs...

and how much you can see beneath the surface, at least to a certain depth.

Our stay at Crater Lake was intended to be two nights long. But perhaps in a sign that this particular National Park really wasn't meant for us (as if the boats not running wasn't enough and I promise that's the last time I'll mention that; probably) and after we spent about an hour or so recuperating (with a beer or two) from a day of hiking, the Lodge lost their water. No, the Lake didn't drain, but there was no running water when we were ready to shower. No running water also means no toilets and no dinner service. With a blessing from the Lodge and a bill for $1 for our second night in hand, we high-tailed it out of there and ended up in Eugene for the night. Done. And done.

If it seems like I've spent most of this post complaining, I apologize. My primary memories of Crater Lake will forever be focused on the water and how gorgeously peaceful it was. I hope the few pictures in this post demonstrate what a beautiful place it is. Unfortunately for me, I'll probably never ride a boat around the shoreline or swim the 55-65 degree water in my life. The second of those is my fault. 

One of the things that makes Crater Lake so special is its remoteness and unfortunately, that's probably the same thing that's going to keep me away from it probably forever. And I'm really OK with that. I'm glad I came and saw it. I got some good memories out of our 24 or so hours there and I slowed down for a day, which is sometimes worth something. Now all I need to do is figure out when I'm going to visit Yosemite. Might be a while.

Finally, I need to keep a promise I made earlier in this post. There are fish living in the Lake. Salmon and trout actually. How did they get there? Why, of course, man put them there so they could fish in the Lake. The problem? There's nothing for the fish to eat. So they also added some crawfish, which are now destroying the natual ecosystem of the Lake. So we are now spending money to eradicate the crawfish. Will we ever learn?

Plaikni Falls. Worth the mile hike.

The Pinnacles at the southeast corner of the Park.

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How We Did It

Crater Lake National Park is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. But depending on where you are coming from, it may be a little complicated to get to. 

There are two entrances to the Park: one from the north and one from the south. The south entrance is open year-round and road crews work throughout the winter to keep the roads to the Park Headquarters passable. However, the Park Headquarters is not at the Lake; it's at the intersection where the south entrance meets Rim Drive. Under most conditions, the road to Rim Village (which is at the Lake) will be open but the rest of Rim Drive, which is pretty much 95% of the loop, and the north entrance, are closed in winter due to snow.

As I hope I've made clear, winter at Crater Lake is not like winter where most of us live. Rim Drive has opened as late as July 13 just last year (2017, in case you are reading this in 2019 or beyond). Check the Park website or call for more information if you are planning a visit. We got to Crater Lake on June 25 this year and we got lucky because they had a mild winter. Like just 29 feet of snow mild.

There is only one hotel in the Park, the Crater Lake Lodge. This place fills up. We booked 53 weeks in advance and the lakeview rooms were sold out. Plan early if you want to stay in the Park. If there's some good news for people who don't like planning that far ahead, our reservation when we made it was fully refundable up to 48 hours ahead of the date of our stay. So if you think you want to go, you can always make a reservation and then cancel later on. Just check the terms when you make the reservation in case they ever change them up. Reservations can be made through the Park website.

Boat tours (when the boats are operable) are sometimes available to book in advance. At the beginning of the season (like the days we went), it's first come, first served. I can't comment on how quickly the boats fill up and the wisdom of showing up without a reservation for reasons which I hope are obvious to you if you've read this entire post. Reservations for the boats, just like lodging, can be made through the Park website.

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Wine

The first time I visited the Napa Valley was in 1998. I went alone; stayed at a brewery in Calistoga for about $35 per night; drank no wine; but had plenty of beer. I was really there to visit the Michael Graves-designed Clos Pegase Winery and the Fernau and Hartmann-designed Napa Valley Museum because visiting buildings is what I did with my vacations 20 years ago.

The second time I visited the Napa Valley was 10 years later. I went with someone who I thought loved me; I stayed outside the Valley in Sonoma; found out I liked chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon; and got food poisoning. Needless to say, my first trip was better than my second. In the end, I survived.

Now it's 2018 and I've just finished my third trip to the Napa Valley (something about years ending in "8" I guess). This year, I went with my wife whom I am very much in love with (and who I know loves me); stayed in the actual town of Napa; and came to not just drink wine but find out if I really love wine. This time, I tried to do it right from start to finish.

But before we start talking about 2018, let's talk some history.

Once upon a time in this world (like in the early 1970s), nobody who really knew anything about wine thought much about California. In fact, when anything other than some sort of cheap table wine was desired, nobody really thought about any other place other than France. Sure, people in California had been making wine at that point for over 100 years (if you include the somewhat reduced output during that dark period in our history called Prohibition) but if you wanted a really really good bottle of wine in the late 60s or early 70s for a special occasion, most people who knew thought about appellations or premier crus or burgundy or bordeaux.

About that same time, there were some winemakers setting up shop in the Napa Valley who were aspiring to make something different than the table wine or fortified wine most California growers were cranking out at that point. Some of these vintners patterned their product after French wines; others were trying anything and everything that would not be tried in France (or anywhere else) to get a superior product. In other words, not competing against anyone other than themselves.

Some of these wines started to attract the attention of a few people outside the United States. One of these people was Steven Spurrier (not the football coach), a British wine merchant living in Paris who was still trying to figure out what to do with his life while living off his inheritance. Owning a wine shop that also conducted wine appreciation classes seemed to Steve I guess to be an appropriate way to spend his time. At least until something better came along.

Then Steve Spurrier had an idea: why not conduct an independent blind taste testing of California and French wines tied in with the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence? His thought was that this might provide some buzz about his own business and enhance his status a bit while also giving some credence to his own idea that wines being made in California weren't half bad sometimes. Not French. Just not half bad.

The blind taste test was held on May 24, 1976 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris. It was an event that was about as un-buzzworthy as you could get since most people assumed the French wines would wipe the floor with the new world wines. It was so un-notable from a coverage standpoint that only one journalist (George Taber from Time Magazine) even bothered to show up to cover it. After the fact, the event became known as The Judgment of Paris, a reference to the choice the Trojan man, Paris, made that led to the Trojan War. Of course, the event only acquired a name after the fact because the unexpected happened: the American wines won and turned the wine world upside down.

Chardonnay, cabernet, cabernet, cabernet. At Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.

I like wine. Before this year's trip to Napa I'd have a hard time saying I loved it which was exactly the point of going back. Since my last trip there in 2008, I've tried many different kinds of wines and I can clearly say that I tend to gravitate towards wines that carry a lot of flavor, preferably with a good amount of acidity. But through all the glasses and cups and whatever else I've drank wine out of in the last 10 years, I've only really loved one wine and that was made in the basement of an old firehouse in Pittsburgh. It was a zinfandel made with California grapes and I loved it as soon as I tasted it. I wanted more of that same experience this year.

Before we really get this post rolling, let me also say that I'm probably never going to be a wine guy in the sense of someone with a sophisticated palate that can articulate all the strange flavors that wine experts and literature list off. I will never understand how a winemaker would want someone talking about the results of their labors tasting like wet stone or old leather or fresh mown hay or something like that. My sense of taste and smell are poor. All I'm likely to be able to describe in this blog post or any other forum is big picture concepts or familiar tastes like spice or acidity or apples or cherries or something like that. On the grapes side, I think I've had enough to know that I like chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel above everything else I've had. Just explaining so you know where I'm coming from.

So we had a plan to go drink wine, we found a hotel and booked a flight. Now what? How the heck do you pick a winery, let alone three or four per day, in Napa Valley? I mean there are only 400 or so to choose from and that doesn't even include the 200 or so that are in the neighboring Sonoma Valley. You clearly can't choose based on the recommendations of the wineries themselves because they all seem to think they are good. This to me seemed to be the first challenge of a long weekend tasting wine. Without the right selections, there would be no chance of finding something I loved.

To make things worse for us, we were told over and over again at the places we ended up visiting that the best wine is the one you like. There is no one single best wine. You have to go find the ones you like that are the best for your palate. This would take a multi-pronged approach to solve this problem. Throwing a dart at 600 wineries clearly wasn't going to work.

The Greeter. Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.

Back to Paris
We decided the backbone of our 2018 wine experience would be the 1976 Judgment of Paris. Sure, it was 42 years ago but we thought why not just pick the two winners of that contest as the first winery in each of our two full days in the Valley. That meant Chateau Montelena one day (they won the white category in the 1976 tasting) and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (which won the red category) on the other. Both wineries still exist today; why not give them a shot. Both turned out to be excellent choices but the differences between the two were striking.

Both wineries can trace their roots to men who arrived in the Napa Valley in 1968. Warren Winiarski moved his wife and kids to the Valley that year and two years later bought a 44 acre lot next to a parcel of land used for growing grapes after tasting the wine those same grapes produced. Jim Barrett bought into a property in Calistoga at the north end of the Valley the same year Winiarski moved his family. Barrett's purchase included an intact winery surrounding an historic 1888 home. Winiarski was a winemaker; Barrett was a lawyer who hired a winemaker to work his land. Both wineries began producing wine in 1972 and both had two bottles of their wine produced the following year entered into the Judgment of Paris. And, of course, both won.

Since that time, Chateau Montelena (its name is a smushing together of Mount St. Helena which can be seen from the still standing home) has remained in the Barrett family, which uses the chateau at the center of the property as their welcome center and tasting facility. Further down the Napa Valley, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars has been sold to The Altria Group, a tobacco company that obviously dabbles in other things; their hospitality center is brand new and cutting edge, a facility that is every bit as gorgeous as Chateau Montelena's without maybe having anywhere near as much character.

Chateau Montelena's historic house.

We decided to go all in at each of these places and book what we saw as a top end tasting experience. That got us a taste of chardonnay and three or four tastes of each winery's signature cabernet, although honestly we got a little extra taste or two at both places. I thought both wineries served us incredible wines. Appropriately enough I thought the best we were served at Chateau Montelena was their chardonnay and the tops at Stag's Leap was one of their cabernets, although both impressed me with some of their other wines too.

At Chateau Montelena we learned that the fruit and acid in their chardonnay is a result of them not using malolactic fermentation, a process that turns the malic acid (which I guess I love) to lactic acid which produces a fatty or buttery taste on the wine (which I don't necessarily care for). I also learned (and maybe much to my chagrin) that I probably prefer lower alcohol wines like the kind Chateau Montelena produces in the style of the great French houses. We managed to get on a four person tasting which also significantly improved the quality of the tasting experience. 

At Stag's Leap we had probably the best cabernet we had on the entire trip, a small taste of the not-available-for-purchase-except-to-members (we are not members) S.L.V. Block 1. We also had one of those I-don't-get-why-people-like-wine-sometimes moments. The last glass we had on our tasting was a 2015 CASK 23 cabernet, a wine that is only made by the vineyard on years when there is sufficient fruit of the best quality. I got the impression that this is one of the most exclusive wines Stag's Leap produces. One of the tasting notes for this particular wine was "cigar box". Now I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a mark of pride or something but that's exactly what it tasted like. And pretty much nothing else. If there's one thing I don't get about wine it's why people want to drink things that taste like the insides of cigar boxes. We moved on. Satisfied but still puzzled about that last one.

Young zinfandel grapes, Storybook Mountain Vineyards. 

Quest for Zinfandel
With chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon sufficiently (and likely excellently) covered in my view by the two Judgment of Paris champions, we needed to seek out a spot that specialized in the grapes that made up the best wine I had prior to June 2018, zinfandel. While there are generalist wineries up and down the Napa Valley that cover a range of grapes and tons and tons that specialize in the super popular chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel represents a minority crop in the area. I wanted to find a vineyard that treated zin like the special and beloved wine that it can be.

Right or wrong, I turned to an internet search engine and typed "best zinfandel napa valley". I swear this was a well intentioned search but all things considered this was probably not the way to go, even if most of the results came up with the exact same name over and over again. Considering the mantra that the best wine is the one that you like best, I'm not going to discourage you from visiting anywhere in the Napa Valley based on my experience so I'm not naming names of the places that I was not impressed with. I'm also very cognizant of the fact that I was chasing a ghost of sorts having already supped what I considered to be a masterful zinfandel. Yes...from Pittsburgh.

Overall, where the internet search engine steered us was not bad. The atmosphere was pleasant enough and the wine was good enough I guess. It just didn't make me want to buy bottles of the stuff or really any at all. Considering this was supposed to be a zin place, I asked for another zinfandel recommendation on my way out and got the exact same name that I would get from Chateau Montelena the very next morning: Storybook Mountain Vineyards.

Mount St. Helena seen from the Storybook property with a field of zinfandel in the foreground.

Storybook was probably the smallest winery we visited on our long weekend trip and it for sure had the best story. The former Grimm (Brothers) Vineyards and Wine Vaults on the eastern side of the Mayacamas Mountains (the Napa Valley is formed by the Mayacamas range to the west and the Vaca Mountains on the east side) was purchased by Jerry and Ingrid Seps in 1976. They've held it ever since. Jerry even drove by us on our way out of the property and waved. And I didn't add the Brothers in parentheses to be cheeky; the original winery was actually owned by two brothers Grimm. Hence the Storybook name today.

The original winery dates from the 1880s, including the caves, which were blasted out by Chinese immigrant labor more than 125 years ago. You'll end up tasting in those caves if you visit. Storybook is almost completely a family affair; it's run by the Seps family and cared for by the sons and nephews of Mexican laborers brought to the property by Jerry just after he bought the property and needed some help harvesting. They are a true estate vineyard, meaning the grapes used in their wine is farmed on the same property and they let no more than 40 minutes elapse from the picking to the fermentation tank. That's pretty incredible considering when I say the two families run the place I mean there's no outside labor brought in for the harvest. Our guide Pam told us the wine was made with love; she appears to be right. We didn't see quite this much personal care anywhere else.

By the way, there's a lot to be said for the hard work and labor of immigrants. Just saying...

The mountain slopes at Storybook are planted carefully, almost like a science experiment. Grape varieties aren't forced to grow in spots where they don't grown best. That's the primary reason the focus at the vineyard is zinfandel, because that's what grows best there. We had some good zins in the caves of Storybook and if we had been traveling locally, I likely would have come away with a bottle at the super reasonable price set by Jerry Seps. I didn't think it was worth shipping. Great story; great people. I'm sure it's worth a visit. Our palates just didn't fit the wine quite perfectly enough.

Bunny Foo Foo. Lawrence Argent, artist. HALL Wines, St. Helena.

More than Wine
Now all this wine drinking can get a fella a little tipsy, and like the typical non-wine person I am, I just refuse to spit in the spit buckets. If wine enters my mouth, it gets drunk. I'm not wasting sips of wine that cost more than $150 a bottle, even if it tastes like cigar boxes. So considering my refusal to spit, we needed a method to pace my intake (for me) and break the boredom of watching me drink wine (for my non-drinking and graciously designated driver-ing wife). Fortunately there are a number of vineyards that offer more than wine.

For our homage to the 1976 Judgment of Paris, we deliberately chose tastings that lasted longer than it took to just swallow five or six quarter-full glasses of wine. These involved a tour around the historic chateau in Calistoga and a look inside the caves at Stag's Leap. We also got an almost two hour stop at Storybook which got the wine I had earlier in that day nicely out of my system. This is a good way to introduce pace into your day. There are other more interesting ways as well.

There are a number of wineries in the Valley that farm olives as well as wine; a few that have on-site bocce or (depending on how French you want to be) pétanque courts; and some that have art galleries of varying quality. You can also grab a bite to eat at some wineries and by this I mean a full meal, not a cheese board with a tasting. We chose a number of wineries on a non-wine basis to break up our day, although we ended up ditching pétanque (I am wanting to be quite French today) and olives in favor of Storybook. The results of our non-wine based wine selections were, shall we say, of varying quality. 

Food from Bruschetteria Food Truck alongside a glass of Clif Family Chardonnay.

You can spend a lot of money eating in the Napa Valley, and I don't mean by getting a $300 plus (without wine or supplements for special orders) per person prix fixe meal at Thomas Keller's famous French Laundry restaurant. There are some seriously expensive plates of food available at some wineries. We passed on all of these, choosing something way more casual than all the set price menus that we found something objectionable about. And by way more casual, I mean like food truck casual, courtesy of the Bruschetteria Food Truck on the Clif Family winery property. Yes, the main dishes are, as the name suggests, bruschettas, but like pizza sized pieces of bread loaded with mushrooms or brisket and plenty of cheese and herbs. This was one of the best meals we had on our ten day jaunt through Napa and all the way to Portland, Oregon. Seriously good stuff. The Clif Family (yes, the same family that makes the bars) chardonnay was pretty darned tasty too.

We also picked a couple of wineries that had art galleries. We love looking at and collecting art and figured this would be a great way to slow down the day, maybe with a small glass of wine to sip over a 30 to 45 minute stroll through a gallery or garden. I said slow down, not cut out entirely. We chose HALL Wines in St. Helena as one of two art-plus-wine stops. HALL has a world class collection of sculpture spread around its property and offers a guided tour plus a tasting after. Sounded great except for the 100 plus degree temperature which turned our well-planned detour into a standard tasting. 

The good news about HALL was that we managed to find a cabernet sauvignon (their almost lowest priced Ellie's) that I really liked despite the points-focused narrative we got from our guide. HALL seems obsessively focused on points assigned to their wines by third parties, typically Wine Spectator magazine, which came up with the system to apply what seems like an objective rating system for wine. As I've mentioned already, the best wine for you is the one you think tastes best, not the one someone else (or a magazine) thinks tastes best. At HALL, I far preferred their 95 point Ellie's to their 98 point Kathryn Hall. Drink the wine that tastes good to you, people.

Our other art gallery / winery pick? Not so successful. In fact, I'd probably never go back for the wine, although I did enjoy some of the art. Again, I'm refusing to name names when I've disapproved of what I've had to drink. There may be some folks out there who love this stuff. There also may be someone (God forbid) who might be basing their own decisions on where to taste based on reading this blog post. I'm even refusing to say the name of the town where we found it.

HALL Wines offerings, including the excellent (to me) Ellie's cabernet sauvignon in the foreground.

That's a lot of writing about wine. Let's bring this thing to a close shall we. 

The point of this trip was to find some wine that I loved. I'm not saying that I would have given up on wine if I hadn't found at least something better than palatable but I might have ended up buying a lot more zinfandel from Pittsburgh and I might never have deliberately visited another winery I wasn't familiar with ever again. Our method of choosing wineries was perhaps key to finding some great wine; pick the wrong ones and you could reasonably blame it on the planner (me) for picking some places that weren't that good. So did that work?

I think in the end, our method worked. We got some hits and we got some misses. But the real point of the trip to find some wine that I loved was satisfied. I ended up shipping back 20 bottles of wine for myself (16 chardonnay and 4 cabernet sauvignon if you must know). Don't think that sounds like a lot? Some of the stuff is pretty darned expensive, although I didn't break the $100 a bottle barrier on any of my purchases. I only shipped three different types of wine back home and only bought at three wineries, meaning I have a lot of some of the same kinds of wine. More than anything else, this trip proved to me that I do, in fact, love some wine. Now Napa Valley is on my list of places to go back. Hey, a long weekend every couple of years couldn't hurt, right?

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How We Did It

As I hope comes through in the post above, finding wine in the Napa Valley is not difficult. All you really need is some form of transportation and a designated driver. Below is a list of all the wineries referenced in this post, listed in the order of our visit. Click on the name of the winery to access their website. If there is other information I think you need to know, I've included that next to the address.

A lot of wineries in the Napa Valley offer walk-in tastings for a fee. If you want something more deluxe than a couple of glasses of wine at a bar, I'd suggest making a reservation in advance. In fact, in some cases you may need a reservation to get in the door. If you've decided you really want to taste at a specific winery, I'd make a reservation. Some of these properties are packed with people. Don't like being tied down to a specific time? Pick just one reservation a day or something like that. Don't lose out on some place you really want to try because you refuse to schedule.

Chateau Montelena Winery, 1429 Tubbs Lane, Calistoga CA. We took The Barrett Dream tour here which got us the super private (four people) tasting referenced earlier in this post. The personal attention this tour offered was appreciated.

Storybook Mountain Vineyards, 3835 Highway 128, Calistoga, CA. Storybook is a reservations-only winery. Don't have a reservation? You might have to try talking your way in at the gate. No guarantees that works.

Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, 5766 Silverado Trail, Napa, CA. Note there are two vineyards in the Napa Valley with similar Stag's Leap names. We visited the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and not the Stags' Leap Winery. The latter did not win the Judgment of Paris in 1976. And yes, the apostrophes are correctly placed in each name. Apostrophes are important here.

Clif Family Winery, 709 Main Street, St. Helena, CA. Wonder where my advice about reservations came from? I wanted to taste at Clif Family and was told (just after noon) that they were sold out for the day. I settled for a glass of wine from the bar. Make reservations if a property is important, folks!

Hall Wines St. Helena, 401 St. Helena Highway South, St. Helena CA. Note that Hall has two properties: one in St. Helena and one in Rutherford. The one in St. Helena has the art collection.

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