The Painted Hills & My Final Week in Crater Lake

Hard to believe, but I just completed my final week of volunteering at Crater Lake National Park.  This has been one of the most memorable summers I’ve ever had, and being here, I have been able to fulfill my dream of being a park ranger.  Not only can I now say I was a ranger, but I was a ranger at one of my favorite places in the country–Crater Lake!  What a privilege it has been to be able to work and live in a National Park for eleven weeks.

This past week, I went to the Painted Hills in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument with Heidi and Gabby.  We woke up early and headed out toward Bend.  We stopped in Bend for a great breakfast and then headed north to John Day near Mitchell, Oregon.  We first stopped at the visitor center, where we watched the park video and purchased some souveneirs.  Inside the visitor center is a museum of some of the many, many fossilized plants and animals that have been discovered there.  What a fascinating place.  We learned that Oregon once had a rain forest climate where bananas grew and relatives of elephants and rhinos roamed!   

   
After the visitor center, we went for a hot hike through the Blue Basin.  The rocks in this area were a mint green-blue color that were just stunning.  We also did a short hike that took us to an overlook of a high peak called Sheep Rock. 

    
 Next, we drove back toward the Painted Hills.  Luckily we got there in the afternoon, so the sun was hitting the colorful clay hills at just the right angle.  We could see reds, oranges, yellows and tans striped along the hills.  This is known as one of the seven wonders of Oregon, and I knew when I first heard of it that I wanted to see it before heading back to Michigan.  The Painted Hills sure were worth the wait!  I even ran into a couple from Wisconsin who had been on my Crater Lake trolley tour a few days prior.  Such a small world! 

    
   
On the way home, we stoppped again in Bend for dinner.  One of the most exciting parts of the day happened on our drive home, however, when we saw a mountain lion cross in front of the car! Such a rare sighting, and one I am so fortunate to have in my last days here.

On Wednesday, I was back to work for the week.  It was bitter sweet doing some of my last tours.  Saying good-bye to the trolley drivers and boat captains was sad, and it was also sad to give my last “Crater Lake Ladies” talk.  During my last day doing the ladies talk, my housemate Kristin, her boyfriend Ian, and Ranger Daphnie came to see my talk.  It was a lot of fun seeing them in the crowd that day.

I also was able to hike Crater Peak this week, one of the few hikes I had left to do in the park.  Again, such a treat when I saw two pikas–again, a rare wildlife sighting.  It was as if the animals here were all coming out to say good-bye!  I even saw a young fox again here in Sleepy Hollow and a last bald eagle on Wizard Island.   

    
 Last night, to celebrate my last days, and to celebrate the other volunteers Tim and Karlie, a lot of the interps and even some of the boat captains came out to dinner at Annie Creek Restaurant.  It was a fun way to wrap up the season, and the staff got me a nice card that certainly brought a tear to my eye.   

 Today, I worked the morning in the Steel Visitor Center, and am now spending the afternoon cleaning, packing, and doing check-out paperwork.   Tonight, I am planning on going up to the lake one last time, stopping to grab a few last-minute souveniers, and then playing one last game of volley-frizz.

Tomorrow, I’ll be headed out early to pick up my dad at the Reno Airport, where we’ll head to Salt Lake City for our first night of our three-day road trip.  

Looking back, this whole experience was rewarding, challenging, and invigorating.  The training was a lot of work, and some of the work days could be long.  The good certainly outweighed any of those challenges, however.  I have been so lucky to meet people from all over the world and from many different backgrounds.  It was very rewarding to be able to help people learn about this unique place, and also continue to learn about it myself, even up to my last days.  My co-workers were some of the most hard-working, genuine, and thoughtful people I have ever worked with, and I have such respect for our park rangers and park service.  I hope to some day come back to Crater Lake, as it has its own special place in my heart.  I also hope to continue to visit and appreciate all of the other special places taken care of by the NPS.  A huge thank you goes out to all of my friends and co-workers who made this summer so special, and all of you have a place to stay if you ever get a chance to visit Michigan.

A big thank you to all of you have been keeping up with my adventures  on this blog.  It has been so fun documenting my summer, and what a surprise at how many of you were interested enough to read it regularly.  I can’t wait to see many of you soon.  Another thank you to my husband, friends, and family who were so supportive in this endeavor.  Because of you, I have been able to do this crazy adventurous thing that I will remember and appreciate for the rest of my life.

Signing off from Crater Lake National Park,

Love, Nicky 

 

Hikers Overboard, Red Cone, & the Coast!

It’s been an eventful few days here at Crater Lake!  Where do I start?  On Sunday, I was prepared for an early boat tour shift of just two standard tours.  Little did I know that my first tour of the day would be quite the adventure!  About half-way through the tour, our boat captain and I noticed what looked like a log floating in the channel between the shoreline and Wizard Island.  As we slowed the boat and approached the log, I saw a head pop up out of the water!  It turns out, two Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) thru-hikers had decided to hike down the wall of the caldera, build a homemade driftwood raft, place their backpacks on the raft, and swim over to Wizard Island.  All of these things are strictly prohibited here for many safety reasons, so we had to pick up the swimmers in our tour boat.  I was finally putting my “man overboard” training to good use.  We gave them some emergency ponchos and blankets, and the other passengers on the boat kindly gave them food and water.  I had to call dispatch and have a law enforcement officer meet us at the docks at the end of the tour.  So we continued on with the tour, then the swimmers, who were very kind and compliant, were unfortunately issued citations for their daring feat.  At least they got a boat tour out of the deal!  The rest of my shift was pretty uneventful, and I made it home by about 5:30 after helping out for a bit in the visitor center.

Monday was my day off, so I decided to take care of some errands at the administration office, mail out some postcards, and then decided to hike on the PCT past a peak called Red Cone.  It was a beautiful, cool day, and it made for a lovely 8-mile hike.  Later that night, we met in Steel Circle to play a little Volley-Friz.  It was a bit chilly so afterward, Heidi and I had some hot cocoa and planned out our day driving to the coast on Tuesday.

Early Tuesday, Heidi and I left for the coast at 6 am.  We headed up toward Newport, stopping in Eugene for breakfast.  In Eugene, we saw a funky doughnut shop called VooDoo donuts, so we stopped and bought a dozen to take home with us.  We then ate breakfast at a restaurant called Off the Waffle.  I ate a savory caprese waffle with tomato, mozzarelladr. , avocado, and basil.  What a treat!  It was a great way to fill up for the rest of the day.

After Eugene, we drove to Newport where we walked along the beach.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and the salty air was so refreshing.  We saw jellyfish, crabs, and sea anemones in the tide pools. After the beach, we visited a hotel called the Sylvia Beach hotel.  I had seen this place online and instantly knew I wanted to see it in person.  At Sylvia Beach, each room of the quaint hotel is themed with a different author.  The owners let us wander through the halls, peeking in any rooms that were open.  My favorite rooms were the F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dr. Seuss rooms.  As an English teacher, this was a huge highlight of my trip!

From Newport, Heidi and I headed south, stopping along the way to see the beaches and any other places that looked worthy of stopping.  We went to Seal Rock, Thor’s Well (which I had seen with Allison last week!), and the Oregon Dunes.  We also saw some elk along the way!

At Reedsport, we headed back east toward Crater Lake, stopping in Roseburg for a delicious Mexican dinner and a grocery run.  Unfortunately, as headed home, we were detoured because of a wildfire, but we eventually found an alternate route and were home by 11:00.

All in all, it was an exciting and very full three days.  Now it’s back to work for the week.  I hope everyone is having a great week so far.  Until next time, good bye from Crater Lake!

Rough Rider Falls Hike

After Saturday’s long day of the Wizard Island boat tour shift, it was nice to have Sunday as a prep day.  I spent the morning in the library down the hall from our interp work room, where I continued to research the women of Crater Lake, which will be the subject of my 20-minute ranger talk at the Sinnott Memorial.  If you recall from a previous post, I had made some personal connections to one woman named Frances Fuller Victor, whose name used to grace what is now the Sinnott Overlook.  

In Sunday’s research, I discovered that after renaming her overlook (Victor Rock) to the Sinnott, the 1945 superintendent of the park decided to give her another overlook called Victor View.  After planning my trolley tour, I knew there was no overlook on the map named Victor View, so I did some investigating.  One article said that Victor View was located at the overlook above Sentinel Point, which can only be found by locating an easily-overlooked trail over a rock wall and through a stand of mountain hemlocks.  

This was turning into quite the mystery, so after eating lunch at home, I hopped in my car and set out to find Victor View.  It took me stopping at a few different overlooks on East Rim Drive, but I finally found the trail behind the rock wall.  And boy was I excited to follow that path!  Sure enough, it was hidden from sight of the overlook, but led down to Sentinel Point which I had seen from the boat, but never from the road. I was so happy that I had found Frances’s overlook, and it gave me more motivation to keep investigating, which I continued to do that afternoon. 

 After my day of prepping, Heidi, Karlie, and I headed over to a cookout where a couple who works here at the park was celebrating their wedding which had occurred this past weekend.  We got a bite to eat and chatted with lots of people from other divisions.  Then we headed over to play some volley-friz with the other interps, which was another great time.  

Today was my day off, so after I woke up, I set to work finding a new trail to go hike.  Once I found one, I ventured out once again to the Rogue National Forest for another hike along the Rogue River.  I had to drive a little off the main highway to a forest road, but shortly thereafter I located the trailhead.  It was a beautiful day, so I decided to do a longer hike that would be about 8 miles round trip.  As I set off, I hiked through stands of Shasta Red Firs and Sugar Pines, the Sugar Pines being known for their really big pinecones. 

 The highlight of the hike would be two big waterfalls.  The first came after about 2 miles of hiking.  This one was simply called “Un-named Waterfall” in my guidebook.  But after seeing it, I feel it is definitely worthy of a name! 

   
The second waterfall was called Rough Rider Falls, and it appeared around mile 4 of my hike.  I can certainly understand why it was named so, as I certainly would be fearful of taking a ride down this one!   Rough Rider was particularly beautiful because of the bright green moss that grew on the rocks and logs in its path.  The air was significantly cooler here too, which was a nice break from the 90 degree afternoon. 

    
   
The hike back was peaceful and I got to get another glimpse of the Un-named Falls on the way.  I also realized that despite the incredible falls on this trail, I was the only person on the entire trail.  Such solitude is truly special.

When I got back to my car, I located another short trail in my guidebook that led to a waterfall just about 3 miles up the road, so I headed there next.  I had to drive another 4 miles down a forest service road, but the trail to National Creek Falls was well-marked with signs.  It was just a half mile down a trail, but it led to an absolutely stunning waterfall that was so big, I had trouble getting all of it in the shot of my camera.  Plus, the mist from the falls was so great that I had to be quick so that it didn’t totally soak my I Phone while I was taking the photos. 

   
That same mist also created a pretty rainbow in front of the falls. 

 After admiring the view for a while, I hiked back up to my car, wrapping up a 9-mile day of hiking.  Phew!  It was nice to get home, shower, eat some dinner, and chill for the rest of the night.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to Lava Beds National Monument with Heidi which should prove to be another great adventure.  Until then, good night from Crater Lake!