We stopped along the road in northern Oregon at a spot that promised to identify the mountains in the distance, but they were barely noticeable behind the haze of smoke. You can see that one side of the road has burned in the recent wildfires that have plagued the region and the other has not.
This is the Cooked River Railroad Bridge south of Madras. There were four geocaches in this little park that included three crossings of the 300 foot deep gorge, the RR, the current 5 lane highway and the old two lane one. The smoke has cleared at this point and you can see several mountains in the background.
A view of Wizard Island in the middle of Crater Lake from the North Junction overlook. Traveler’s Tip: Drive the loop in a clockwise direction because that puts the mountainside on your right. Traveling the opposite direction frequently puts nothing but a huge drop with no guardrail on that side of the car.
Beautiful scenery!
Crater Lake was awesome,unfortunately I picked up a bug somewhere and it was all I could do to drive up, take in two overlooks, check in and sleep until morning. Today is the first day I feel almost normal. We are already planning on a return trip so we can actually walk some of the trails surrounding the rim, maybe do the boat ride, etc.