I decided that since we'd be passing through Klamath Falls, which is a decent sized town, I'd better get some long johns and perhaps a thick blanket to put over the top of the bag. So after a breakfast of fruit, we headed to Crater Lake, our first stop for the morning. As with many people before us, we were struck with how blue the water of the lake is. At 1,943 feet it is the deepest lake in the United States and one of the deepest in the world. The Native Americans of the area held the lake as a sacred place and for years it lay "undiscovered." It had been found several times starting in 1853, but it wasn't until 1869 that it was given its present name. Before the eruption estimated at 7,700 years ago, it was known as Mount Mazama.
Bill's temperature gauge said it was in the mid-thirties and it felt that way, but as you can see from the pictures, it was a clear morning. Our intention was to ride the rim road around the crater at least to get over toward Phantom Ship Island, but the road was closed before we got to the east side. So we stopped at a couple areas to get pictures of the lake and Wizard Island. Following the road down to SR62, then US97, we rode into Klamath Falls to get gas and my warmer sleeping stuff.
Leaving town, we headed southeast on SR139 on into California riding past Tule Lake which sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it until we passed a sign giving me a clue. Camp Tulelake was an area infamous for Japanese-Americans as a processing center during the early days of World War 2 to "relocate" potentially dangerous, but innocent people. It was also a prisoner of war camp where German and Italian POWs were incarcerated. I wished we had time to stop as this is history that I'm interested in, but we had a long way to go, so I had to be content with just making a mental note to look it up later.
Continuing on SR139 we passed through Adin, then further southwest on 299 through Fall River. It was about there that we stopped at the site of an old school house to strip off warmer layers. Now that we're out of the mountains and in lower elevations it had really warmed up! After that we turned south on to SR89 toward Lassen National Forest which we entered via SR44. In the afternoon, we stopped at Chester to get gas and food, then started to head back the way we came, but instead we crossed over the top of Lake Almanor and then down SR147 looking for a campsite. Somewhere between the lake and Greenville we found a nice, nearly empty campground called Royal Elk. There was a really talkative old guy that walked over to chat us up.
I thought he was the camp host, but he was just a friendly guy. He gave me a chunk of ice to help me keep some of my food cold for the night. This was a warmer camp and one where we were able to make a nice campfire for the night. It was a good day's riding and at 370 miles, shorter than the day before. But I knew we'd pay for that shortness the next day when we tackled Nevada.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
