(June24– written by Dave)

30 Miles – 2,861 feet climbing

It was very quiet overnight in the Diamond Lake Campground. Somehow I convinced Nancy that even though there were lots of laminated bear warning signs, the large plastic, definitely not bear proof camp trash bins just about proved that bears were not really active. Couple that with a complete lack of bear proof food storage, gave me additional assurance. To help Nancy sleep, naturally, I stated all of this with 100% high confidence in my voice. I think she bought it. Best of all, no bears, chipmunks, squirrels or other varmints bothered us or our food all night.

It was coolish this morning – we even had to wear our leg warmers at brekkie and for the first 30 minutes of riding. We met a couple guys of a 6 person crew heading north on the Oregon Volcano Route from Klamath Falls to Portland (it’s 50/50 gravel/paved). They gave us some tips for the road ahead but we couldn’t help them much as until today we’ve been on a “roll-your-own” route. There is some rain forecast for Friday and the weekend, we’ll be done by then. I hope the riders we met don’t have too much of an issue.

As for the ride, it was a good steady climb up to the rim of Crater Lake once we left Diamond Lake. About 5 miles in we reached the entrance to the national park but at 9:00AM it was still unattended. That’s the second time in two days where there should have been folks working in our national parks and collecting money who were MIA. I don’t know if this is normal, something to do with DOGE staff cuts that we read about, or if we’re just too early in the season or something else entirely. Whatever the cause, there is money being left on the table. Clearly, from our view of the parks, maintenance is not getting all the money they need. For the record, our lifetime senior pass to US National parks would made our entries today free, but I’m sure that all the cars passing us going up into the park were not seniors with passes.

After about 2,400 feet of climbing and a couple hours, we finally reach the rim. We stopped at the first viewpoint for photos and congratulations. The lake is still as stunningly blue as it was last time we were here.

From the viewpoint there was about 200 feet of climbing left to the highpoint of the west side rim road. We handled this with ease. We topped out at 7,436 feet. On the climb there was some signage at a pull out about the geology of the cascades. We stopped and took it all in. In fact, we stopped at every viewpoint and sign from the first one until we reached Crater Lake Lodge. Why not on a gorgeous sunny day after you’ve ridden all the way here from your own driveway.

We were going to stop at the snack bar for lunch but their sun deck doesn’t have a view of the lake. So I convinced Nancy to continue on to the lodge proper. We grabbed a coffee and blackberry/peach cobbler w/ ice cream to celebrate. It was really hot sitting the lodge’s famous rocking chairs with a view, but totally worth it.

Nancy wanted one of the grilled cheese sandwiches from the snack bar that I had told her about but I convinced her that we could get one at the restaurant at Mazama Village. It was only 5 miles from the lodge, all downhill, so she bought in. The village restaurant seemed closed at first but we’d come in at the back. They didn’t have grilled cheese but did have a massive “Mountainous Dog”, the largest hot dog known to mankind. Nancy was happy, I dodged a bullet.

We waddled over to camp after our big feed. The hiker/biker sites are not open for the season but like last night, there a stack of first-come first-serve sites. We picked one out that looked to not overly sunny. Even though it’s a big RV pull through site, the gals working reception didn’t care and even better, they gave us a 50% discount for having the lifetime senior parks pass.

We’re higher now, at 5,654 feet, than we were last night but other than a little puffing when I inflated our air mattresses, we’re feeling fine. We were down in the Willamette Valley three afternoons ago. Maybe we’ve climbed slow enough.

The Pacific Coast Trail goes through here. There were a couple folks that looked like through hikers in the restaurant. They looked pretty fit and perhaps a little determined. We didn’t get the feeling that they were desperate for conversation. If they started down at the Mexico border, they would have been doing something like 30-40 miles per day to reach here by this time in the year. Yes, we are really just softies!

Tomorrow we ride our last day from here to Klamath Falls. Nancy just looked it up and while it is our longest mileage day of the drip, we have 2,000 more feet of descending that climbing. Tomorrow’s forecast still looks good – maybe we’ll have tailwinds as well :-).