Crater Lake

The drive from our house to Crater Lake National Park was about seven and a half hours. On the way, Sue and I listened to some of the mix CDs I made for our driving vacation last year, when we drove around the American Southwest. Crater Lake is just a long weekend for us -- a nice getaway after Gen Con and a lot of work hubbub.

Meanwhile, Marley was at doggy camp. At least, that's what I call it. We found an excellent pet sitter not far away who keeps Marley at her house while we're away. Not only does the sitter take in up to three dogs at a time, but she's got two dogs of her own. They have a nice fenced-in yard, a wading pool, and lots of fun doggy toys. The dogs get to play together all day long. Plus, since this is the sitter's full-time job, Marley gets lots of attention, including two walks each day, a chance to run in the park, and more. Honestly, I don't know if she's really all that happy when it's time to come home.

Anyway, Sue and I talked about Malhavoc Press and the future a lot on the long drive. Sue observed that we need to take at least one long road trip each year just for the health of the company -- that's where all our decisions seem to get made. In fact, the very decision to start Malhavoc came to us on a road trip.

After a long drive, we pulled into the park in the late afternoon. It's a beautiful, sunny day but not terribly hot, because by this time we're more than 6,000 feet higher than when we left.

To say that Crater Lake is beautiful is to redefine "beautiful." While the Grand Canyon is breathtaking and awe-inspiring, Crater Lake is just the loveliest spot I've ever been. If you have no idea what I'm talking about (it's a bit of a well-kept secret, actually), Crater Lake in southwestern Oregon lies within the caldera of a volcano that blew its top about 7,000 years ago. The water of the lake is entirely melted snow and rain, for the lake has no inlet or outlet. The area gets an extraordinary amount of snow, however. It averages 533 inches per year -- the park's only open a few months out of the year because of the snow (there was still snow in places while we were there, in fact). The tremendous amount of snow means that the water in the lake -- even without an inlet or outlet -- isn't at all stagnant. Just the opposite, in fact. Because the volcanic rock that makes up the lake basin isn't water soluble, the lake has almost no mineral content. It's purer than water sent through a water purifier. Purer than the purest water you can buy in the store.

It's this purity, coupled with the depth, that... Oh, did I not mention the depth? Crater Lake is almost 2,000 feet deep. It's the deepest lake in the United States, and the seventh deepest in the world. So the purity and depth combine to make for the bluest water I've ever seen. While the water of the Caribbean is a wonderful blue-green, Crater Lake is as blue as the blue crayon in a box of Crayolas. That blue.

So picture a 5-mile-diameter caldera with rocky sides extending up hundreds of feet all the way around, surrounding this unreal blue lake. The water is perfectly still, because there is no wind. I've been to places where people say there's no wind, but they were as windy as Chicago compared to this place. I guess the walls of the caldera must provide shelter. So the water is like deep, blue glass. In the middle is an island, formed from a cinder cone created while the volcano was still active. The island, called Wizard Island, looks like a pointy wizard's hat. It's covered with trees, as are the walls of the caldera.

Now, fans of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil may be thinking, "Hmm. This sounds a little familiar." And it's true. I based the Crater Ridge Mines and the Stalagos on Crater Lake, although I'd only read about the place at the time. The Crater Ridge Mines are far smaller than Crater Lake, though (people who complain about the dungeon being too large can thank me for that!), and the lake in the module doesn't have the benefit of Crater Lake's snowmelt, so it is indeed as stagnant as you'd think. And, of course ,Crater Lake doesn't have dwarf-built bridges connecting the caldera walls and the island in the middle, with doors only openable with magical keys.

But no place is perfect.

We spent two great days there, including a boat trip around the lake itself. Getting to the boat was just as much an experience as the tour, though, as there is only one way down to the water, and it's an incredibly steep hike. And it took me two days to realize why the lake was perfectly calm in the morning but had a tiny ripple across its surface in the evening. It wasn't the wind, it was the fact that the boat tour had gone around the lake four times by then. With absolutely nothing else to disturb its surface, the wake patters of the boat just carried across the whole lake, and by the end of the day the various wakes played off of one another. I thought, actually, that physicists studying wave patterns in nature could do a lot worse than coming to Crater Lake.

We spent much of the trip home talking about our trip there, nursing some light sunburns and our very sore legs from the hike. It's one of the coolest places I've ever been.

 

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