Crater Lake...or "the most beautiful thing I've ever seen"

Friday afternoon (April 29) we took our time packing up, ate some lunch, drove through Sisters and stayed the night at a cabin in La Pine.

All of this was in preparation to see Crater Lake. I will admit I had never heard of Crater Lake until I moved out here. (FYI...My dad said his knowledge was limited to a mention in a Bob Seger song! It's also mentioned in Johnny Cash's "I've been everywhere man").

A few facts: Crater Lake gets about 44 feet of snow a year. The North entrance doesn't open until Memorial day and snow stays on the ground at the lake until late July.  They have a cool video at the visitor's center which explains the snow removal process and how long it takes them to clear 30 foot drifts off of the 30 mile drive around the park (1/4 mile gets cleared a day, starting in April). We went around to the South entrance. As you climb the road to Crater Lake, you see a little snow on the ground....

then a foot or two of snow on the ground, and then this.

Eventually, we saw this:

We got out to take some photos and Desiree immediately went and stood in snow.  

This is her "What? Me?" face.

We hit up the visitor's center. This was the view out.

Because this is the visitor's center: 

No seriously. It's on the other side of my car. There was a tunnel to get in. So, we hopped back in the car and drove to where someone had packed a trail into the snow so that we could see Crater Lake. We climbed up and took in the view. Totally worth it.

 

I also shot a small snippet of video because you couldn't get the whole lake in one camera shot. If you backed up far enough to get it in, you would have been on the wrong side of a 15ft snow bank.