Day 09 - Crater Lake to The Dalles, OR

We were up at 5am. Rob went out to get the bike ready in the dark. On his way back to the room, the sun had begun to rise and the sky was very colorful.

We were on the road by 7am and the temps were around 46F. We expected the temps to rise as we descended from 7300ft.

When we got off the mountain the temperature actually got colder. The temps dropped into the 30s. Brrrr

About 40 miles into the day we stopped in Chemult, OR to top off fuel and put on more layers. The gentleman working the fuel pumps was quite the character. He told us about the winters and all the winter recreation available in the area.

We continued north along US 97 until the GPS told us to turn off on a side road to make our way to the days first stop at the Newberry Caldera. About 6 miles down the road it turned to dirt. We turned around and decided to skip the caldera and instead head for the Lava Lands Visitor Center about 12 miles north along US 97.

We got on the first shuttle bus of the day and made our way up-to the Lava Butte. We hiked around the crater were we could see the 9sq miles lava flow that was produced from this cinder cone. We could also see many other cinder cones around the area. It is believed that the lava that flowed from this and the nearly 400 other cinder cones came from the main Newberry Caldera The lava flowed under ground and then pushed up through the surface at the various cones. The landscape made from these volcanoes is other worldly.

Once back down at the visitor center we took a short hike through the lava field. 

We learned that weasels live in these parts, and considered that perhaps this is what we saw at Crater Lake during our first constellation outing that night.

One of the rangers told us that the main caldera at Newberry was worth the visit and gave us directions on how to get there via paved roads. It was now 11:45am so we back tracked about 5 miles south on US 97 to Sunriver to have lunch at Big Belly Burger Deli. The burgers were very good.

Given the rangers advice, we decided to head back south to the Newberry caldera. It took about 45 minutes to make it to the caldera. We drove through the National Monument to the very end and where disappointed in the lack of overlook locations (zero). The area is more akin to a recreation area than a National Monument. We did stop at the obsidian flow.

The ranger made it sound like it was a large piece of poured glass. In fact it was flow with about 10% obsidian only. The flow was interesting and Jerry and Rob hiked to the top along a very rugged path. At the top we could see Lake Paulina.

We jumped back on the bikes and headed north along US 97 towards the Washington state line. About 60 miles from the state line, the landscape changed to a very arid affair. If not for the distant mountain peaks, we thought we were back in Nebraska.

We made it to the Columbia River and crossed over into Washington State about 20 miles from out final destination. We followed the river west and crossed back into Oregon to stay at our hotel in The Dalles.

After checking into the hotel, we walked down to a local restaurant, Big Jims. We ordered dinner and sandwiches for tomorrow’s picnic at Mount St. Helens.

Tomorrow we ride along the scenic Columbia River Gorge, visit Mount St. Helens on our way to Mount Rainier NP.