Djurdjevic - Personal Photos - Oregon, May 2007

23 Jan 2011

Updated May 27 - Memorial Day 2007

On the Oregon Trail

Portland, Roseburg, Cascade Mountains, Crater Lake, Medford...

MEDFORD, Oregon, May 28, 2007 - The bright sunlight this morning was nothing short of sparkling. It made for a perfect day to visit the Cascade Mountains and the Crater Lake. I am sure glad I waited out in Roseburg yesterday for the storm blow over before continuing my "Oregon Trail" adventure. And what an adventure it was...

I have been on dozens around the world trips, but I can honestly say I have never seen anything as magnificent as some of the scenes today. Like the one above... at Crater Lake, which I am sharing with you out of sequence just as an "appetizer."

The road generally followed the North Umpqua River in the easterly direction (see above map). I stopped occasionally to admire the rapids, like those above.

Considering how beautiful the scenery was, and that this was the last day of the three-day Memorial Day weekend, I was surprised at how few cars there were on the road. At times, I had a feeling I had all this natural beauty just to myself. Being selfish and not one who likes crowds, especially in traffic, it made me think twice before publishing this travelogue. :-)

I've read somewhere that the North Umpqua River is the nation's capital of fly-fishing. Until not that long ago, I had never heard of this river with a weird name, and I only had a vague idea what fly-fishing was. This morning, I got a firsthand education about both. As you can see, the fly-fishermen were out in force; probably the only ones on the road this early in the morning besides myself. :-)

And now, here's a little test for you: How many fishermen are there in the above photo? [If you need help figuring it out, the answer is - 5. The fifth one, and the hardest one to see, is in the top left part of the picture].

You can see four more in this shot... I took the picture on the left primarily because of that unusual rock formation that towers over it. There is also a high cable that spans the gorge, but that's pretty hard to see in a photo of this size. I

The Toketee Falls are said to be the most famous waterfall in the northwestern U.S. I'll let

you be the judge of that. But before you do, I want you to know that it took some work to take those photos. The distance from the parking lot to the falls was about a mile (leftmost thumbnail). Which is not much. Except that it was a very aerobic mile, with many up and down slopes and steps.

Along the way, I decided to stand next to one of the fallen fir trees to give you an idea of their size (second thumbnail from left). In case you're wondering, I had the local bear take the picture [just kidding]. :-)

And then I finally got to the falls (two rightmost thumbnails). Frankly, I was underwhelmed. Compared to the Niagara Falls in Canada, the Victoria Falls in New Zealand, and even the much smaller Plitvice Falls in the former Yugoslavia, all three I've also had a good fortune to see up close and personally, the Toketee Falls seemed sort of ho-hum. But I was glad of the exercise.

I was also glad I had a chance to see these magnificent fir giants, some of which protrude over 300 feet straight up into the sky. I took a photo of one of them in two parts (two above thumnails), and then spliced the tree together in the real size photo that runs along the left border of this page.

Yes, it's all one tree, believe it or not. You can even see the wooden platform at the bottom from which I took the photos of the waterfall. So we'll just go on with the rest of the trip, as if climbing down the giant fir tree.

My next stop was at the Diamond Lake. Considering that it lies at an elevation of about 5,500 feet, I figured that that snow-capped mountain cone was about 8,000 feet. When I checked the map later on, I found out that it was Mt Bailey, elevation 8,093 feet. :-)

While Umpqua river may be the fly-fishing capital of the U.S.A., the Diamond Lake is a place that attracts both boat and lakeside fishermen. Except that some of them are more sedentary and female. Like that blonde lady who was getting ready to cast her line as I took the picture.

Okay, with the preceding as an overture, now we can move on to the main show. What I saw at Crater Lake is nothing short of breathtaking. I took quite a few photos from four points around the lake (marked on the above map). And since they say that "a picture is worth a thousand words," I'll let the photos do most of the talking...

Perhaps you remember that I was wondering yesterday if there might be snow at Crater Lake? (see Day 2). So you can imaging how excited I was when I saw the first patch of snow, at the north entrance the Crater Lake National Park (leftmost thumbnail). And then there were snow banks on both sides of the road. And then they got bigger... and bigger. Finally, I stopped the car to take a picture of it next to the snow banks so you can see just how big they were.

And the snow kept getting deeper and deeper. "My God," I kept saying to myself, "and this is on Memorial Day weekend!" Just imagine what snow here must look like in the winter!?

And then, just like that, there was a patch of the desert that broke up the snow banks. It's called Pumice Desert. It is probably windswept volcanic soil which is why so few plants grow on it. It reminded me of a similar site in Maui, near Wailea, where lava flow from Haleakala Crater created a "moonscape" scenery amid an otherwise lush and green scenery. And then the high snow banks continued until I reached the Crater Lake rim, at an elevation of about 8,000 feet.

This was my first glance at the lake. As I walked around the rim, I kept snapping pictures. I'll shot up now so they can talk to you...

The object in the middle of the rightmost shot looks like a sculpture. It is actually a fir tree... as if in agony, but still alive, even after all the torture it has had to endure under some incredibly harsh climatic conditions.

When I turned around from the lake to look the other way, snow capped mountain tops were dotting the skyline all around. And I was looking DOWN on them! This made me feel on top of the world.

So I had my friendly Cascadian bear take another picture of me - standing "on top of the world" - on this Memorial Day weekend 2007. The bear was such a clever photographer that he made it seem as if the Earth's curvature, and not just the mountaintops, was below me. :-)

... and finally, I'll end the Crater Lake episode with the "money shot" with which I started today's travelogue...

How can you top being on top of the world and taking in such amazing scenes? Well, you can't. But there were still a few interesting spots on the way down the mountain, as I descended toward Medford, my ultimate destination of today's journey.

Above are the scenes from the Rogue River Gorge. I've found the river actually quite pretty, hardly a "rogue" river. Some say that the origin of its name is derived said to be derived from the French word "rouge," meaning red. Maybe that's because of the red berries that grow around it? Either way, it's a lovely river...

... as is also evident from the leftmost thumbnail, where the Rogue River is dammed form a lake. Suggest you look at the next two shots in succession. They are pictures of 9,500-foot Mt. Mclaughlin, taken from Hwy 62 just outside Medford. Doesn't the mountain look like Mount Fuji in Japan?

My Medford hotel was very close to the airport, so I paid this cute regional airfield a visit. I had no idea it had been there since 1929. Today, United, Delta, US Airways and Horizon Airways are the four airlines that serve it with flights to and from San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, LA and even Phoenix (US Airways). If only I had know... [just kidding... I wouldn't have missed the road trip for the world].