Southern Oregon (STR-2022-19)

Friday, 29 July

This morning, we headed back to Oregon. Our first stop was the Oregon Caves Illinois Valley Visitor Center in Cave Junction, OR, the for Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve (www.nps.gov/orca/index.htm) to see if we could get a cave tour today. Advance reservations were sold out, so we had our fingers crossed. Especially as tours were limited to 10 people.

When we entered the Visitor Center, the Ranger asked if we wanted a cave tour, and put us on the 11:15 tour, an hour away. Which she followed up with their guidance to allow an hour to drive from the Visitor Center to the cave entrance.

The cave is 20 miles up a winding road, climbing to an elevation of 3,800 feet. We arrived in sufficient time. Ranger Cheryl went over the cave tour, including 1-mile walk underground, the 500 steps (many of them wet), and low overheads. We all had to pass the cave mobility test, demonstrating that we could navigate under the 45-inch high places along the tour.

Oregon Cave is one of only two marble caves in the U.S., the other being in Idaho. Ranger Cheryl showed us the original entrance:

Thankfully, they now use a more tour-friendly sized entrance.

Flowing out of the entrance was the Styx River, the only wild and scenic underground river.

Oregon Caves is a living cave, and Ranger Cheryl pointed out things like roots penetrating the cave ceiling from the trees above, the marble ceiling in several locations, and the usual cave formations like flow stone, stalagmites, stalactites, soda straws, etc.

Old Entrance from the Inside

An interesting formation was moon milk, where the calcite had covered roots protruding from the ceiling.

A most interesting cave.

After our cave tour, we made our way back to Cave Junction to an Amazon locker to pick up an order.

We considered trying to play golf, but the temperature was now 100 degrees, considerably warmer than the mid-60s to low-70s of the past few days on the coast. We decided the wiser thing to do was to acclimatize to the hot temperatures before trying to play golf in this heat. So we headed to the campground at Lake Selmac Josephine County Park, Selma, OR.

Saturday, 30 July

We headed for Crater Lake National Park, a little over two hours away. Enroute, we stopped at Rogue River Gorge.

An interpretive sign explained how the gorge was formed.

The gorge was likely formed by the collapse of lava tubes and the force of the River as it followed fractures between the layers of lava.

Not too far from the gorge, we entered Crater Lake National Park, Sprinty’s 31st National Park since February 2017.

As we ascended to the crater rim, we saw the sky was filled with haze from wildfires. It certainly muted the scene we expected.

We decided to take the Crater Lake Trolley Tour, a Ranger-led two-hour tour making 5 to 10 stops. This avoided us having to hope we could park Sprinty at the overlooks, and Darrell could look around instead of having to drive.

The Ranger told us about the history of the crater, along with several jokes to see if we were listening.

Just after the trolley dropped us off, as we made our way to the gift shop, we saw John and Kelly-ann from our caravan. Their Class A motorhome had a radiator issue about the same time as Sprinty encountered the deer. They waited 28 hours for a tow truck 

and their rig is still at the Freightliner repair place awaiting parts. In the meantime, they are staying with a friend in Medford, and were visiting Crater Lake NP today.

By now, the haze was a little better, so we took photos from similar places as before.

Even with the haze, the water was a deep blue in color - it is probably even prettier on a clear day.

We departed the north entrance to the nearby Broken Arrow Campground near Diamond Lake, a National Forest campground recommended by Joanne from our caravan. Unfortunately, cell service was horrible, despite three or four bars of signal strength.

Sunday, 31 July

We started the morning with a bike ride around Diamond Lake, also recommended by Joanne from our caravan. It was a nice paved trail. As we passed through some of the other National Forest campgrounds by the lake, it was easy to see why the cell towers were so congested last evening as every site was filled.

After the bike ride, we headed for Newberry National Volcanic Monument with the expectation we would not stay at Broken Arrow Campground another night, despite having a paid for reservation. We decided to see how the day went before making a decision on where to spend the night, knowing we could return to Broken Arrow Campground if we had to.

As suggested in a Visit Bend guide (www.visitbend.com/points-interest/newberry-national-volcanic-monument-newberry-caldera/), we started at the Lava Lands Visitor Center. We quickly got on the shuttle bus to take us to the top of Lava Butte

Lava Butte is a cinder cone formed about 7,000 years ago when an eruption sent gas-charged molten rock high into the air. The material solidified, trapping gas bubbles which formed cinders. The cinders pile into a cone.

While at the top of Lava Butte, we hiked the 0.25 mile loop around the rim of the caldera.

Back at the bottom, we stopped by the Visitor Center to check out the interpretive exhibits and learn more about the Newberry Volcano, Oregon's largest volcano.

The Cascade Range is an arc of volcanoes that extends about 775 miles from Lassen Peak in northern California to Meager Mountain in Canada. Although best known for the 30 prominent snow-capped peaks, the range contains more than 3,400 volcanoes including over 450 volcanic vents on the flanks of Newberry Volcano.

Newberry Volcano is a shield volcano with a caldera at its summit. It is one of the largest volcanoes in the lower 48 states. It is not part of the Cascade Mountain Range, but lies to the east at the juncture of two major fault zones in Central Oregon. The volcano covers an oval area of about 600 square miles. Its highest point, Paulina Peak, stands at 7,985 feet. Lava flows and cinder cones make up about 75% of the volcano, while the remaining 25% is ash, air-fall deposits, and sediments.

One of the most popular things to do in Newberry National Volcanic Monument is the Lava River Cave Hike. So popular that they are implementing timed entry permits starting August 1st. The parking area is also small. As we did a cave two days ago, we decided not try this one today - good thing as it was full up when we drove past on the way to the visitor center at 11am and they closed it at noon today due to extreme heat - high temperature of over 100 degrees)

Instead, we drove up the Newberry Volcano to the Big Obsidian Flow, an expanse of more than 170-million cubic yards of glassy obsidian and pumice.

We hiked the trail to see the extent of the obsidian and pumice.

Obsidian (basically volcanic glass) is rare and found and only a few places around the world.  The abundance of obsidian drew native peoples to Newberry Crater. Walking for days from their winter camps along the Deschutes River, they gathered a year's supply of valuable rock from which they would fashion tools. 

Obsidian is very sharp. In the 1970s, doctors performed open heart surgery on anthologist Donald Crabtree using steel scalpels and obsidian scalpels fabricated by Crabtree. The incisions from the obsidian blades healed with hardly a trace, while the steel blades left huge scars. Obsidian blades can be shaped to a width of nearly one molecule. 

We wrapped up our visit to Newberry National Volcanic Monument by visiting Paulina Falls, an 80-foot waterfall.

After our hike to the waterfall, we reviewed our options and settled on spending the night at KOA Journey Klamath Falls Campground in Klamath Falls, OR, about 2 hours south.

Monday, 1 August

After visiting Newberry Volcano yesterday, we decided not to visit Lava Beds National Monument in Tulelake, CA. Several of the lava caves were closed, we have hiked lava caves before, and it was a bit out of the way. So we decided to play golf. We played Shield Crest Golf Course a few miles from the KOA in Klamath Falls, OR. Picked in part because they were a Harvest Host.

When we called to make a tee time, they said there was a mens groups going off at 9am, and that we might could go off after them. Just in case, we arrived early and practiced a bit. Based on the folks we saw teeing off, we realized the real story was that tee times before 9am were only for members. They let us go off just in front of the mens group.

We played at our own pace as there were only two-somes in front of us. We enjoyed the cooler weather as the smoke haze and some clouds kept it from getting as hot. We both struggled with the greens which sped up as they dried out from the morning watering.

We learned from some locals that the lightening last night started a fire in Sprague River, OR, about 40 miles away. And the McKinney fire in Klamath National Forest in California west of I-5 was growing.

We then turned south, crossed into California and bid Oregon farewell for this year.