Monday, September 27, 2010

Crater Lake Bike Ride

On Tuesday September 14th, I biked the Crater Lake rim road with my friends Perry and Carol. From  the starting point the rim road is 33 miles long and requires 3800 feet of climbing. 
We left from Rim Village, at an elevation of 7100 ft., at about 9:30am.
 Most bikers choose to ride clockwise around the lake and so did we.   As you can see we had pretty good weather.




The whole rout is pretty much either going up or down.  Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding we had to do the worst hill at the end of the day.

There were traces of snow remaing along the road and as you can see here there was still snow down next to the lake.
There are over 30 turnouts and view points along the rout and so many chances to regroup along the way..
Crater Lake was formed when 12,000 ft Mt Mazama erupted over seven thousand years ago with an explosion thought to be forty times more powerful than Mt St. Helens.  The resulting crater filled with rain and snow melt to a depth of over 1900 feet.  It snows so much here that the entire loop road is only open for 3 or 4 months a year.
This picture is taken from one of the lowest elevations along the rout.



Here you can see Phantom Ship Island.

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