Back in the early to mid '90s, my extended family (sisters and cousins and aunts -- literally) held several family vacations at Black Butte Ranch, an upscale resort near the town of Sisters, Oregon. So Cherie and I knew how beautiful the central Oregon Cascades are and wanted to include the area on our trip. In particular, there is a road called the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway which I had heard about at Black Butte and have wanted to drive ever since.
This was our opportunity. We took I5 south from Portland and turned off near Salem onto US 20 which follows the South Santiam River up into the Cascades, across the Santiam Pass, and down into the town of Sisters. Although there was plenty of beautiful scenery along this route, we didn't stop because we hadn't left Portland until mid-afternoon, and we wanted to get to our campground at the Bend Sisters RV Resort before dark.
We arrived shortly after 6:00 PM to find an almost totally empty park. Although this was a new and highly unusual experience for us, it wasn't completely unexpected. That's because a major forest fire, the Pole Creek Fire, had been burning near Sisters for the past two weeks. We first got wind of this (sorry, bad pun) as we had headed north from Portland. At that time, there was a preliminary evacuation order in effect for Sisters, and very poor air quality due to smoke. Fortunately, however, the fire was 80% contained by the time we left Portland heading south, and indeed when we reached the campground we couldn't even smell any smoke. There were only a handful of RVs in the park that holds about fifty that night. And I must say, although the scenery didn't compare with The Living Forest or Sol Duc Hot Springs, the facilities were the best we've seen. Every site was flat level, had a paved pull-through driveway, a groomed lawn, and a fire ring in the midde of a small paver-stone patio. And of course full hookups. The bathrooms featured curtains, travertine floors, and easy chairs.
The park is located immediately adjacent to the Sisters Rodeo grounds, and we immediately noticed that the rodeo grounds were full of tents, porta-potties, portable showers and mess kitchens, and other paraphernalia associated with large-group camping. At first we guessed it was Cycle Oregon, a week-long bike tour that takes place every fall. But we quickly discovered that it was the main Pole Creek firefighters camp. Ever wondered where hundreds of out-of-state firefighters sleep and eat for weeks on end while they go out to do battle on the fire lines every day, and sometimes all night as well? Well, now you know.
The next morning we hit the road bright and early for our big day in the Oregon Cascades. The first 10 miles or so of the byway consists of the road to the Mt. Bachelor ski area:
After the turn-off to the ski area, the road circles around Mt. Bachelor and passes close to the South Sister. There are three peaks close to each other west of Bend which are called the (south, middle, and north) Sisters. They are volcanic in orgin, as are all the major peaks of the Cascade Range. Not too far past Mt. Bachelor, we turned off, more or less at random, at Sparks Lake and had lunch in the Enterprise:
After lunch, we followed an awful dirt road with lots of washboard and potholes for a few miles, because I had a hunch that Sparks Lake would be worth seeing. I was right, as you can see from the first photo in this post. This was the "money shot" for the trip. And it really did look like the picture. Although we passed nearly a dozen more lakes on the byway, none were anywhere near as spectacular.
As sunset approached, we arrived at Crater Lake National Park, our last scenic stop of the trip. We had incredibly lucky weather on this trip -- not a drop of rain -- and the sunshine held nicely during our stay at Crater Lake. Spending three and a half weeks in the Pacific Northwest without a drop of rain is a serious accomplishment. The fact that we bought expensive rain gear before we left was probably responsible. It's an elaboration on the old idea that if you bring your umbrella it won't rain. But having sunshine at Crater Lake is critical because it's the only way you can see the amazingly deep blue:
And I was even more fortunate on this shot to have a total absence of wind on the lake, which accounts for the mirror-like surface. Wizard Island, which you see sitting near the west shore of the lake, is the top of a volcano which collapsed into its empty magma chamber after a gigantic eruption 7700 years ago, forming the crater which filled up with snow melt over the next several hundred years. Before the eruption the mountain was 12,000 ft. high. Now the rim elevation varies between 7000 and 8000 ft. This is actually quite a lot of elevation if you're hiking uphill -- there's significantly less oxygen than you get at sea level. It's also high enough to get a lot of winter snow -- they average 44 feet of snow per year.
Driving around the rim of the crater, one finds many interesting photo ops. I'll leave you with my favorite:
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