A Boat Ride to Wizard Island
The beauty of Crater Lake rivals better known national parks like the Grand Canyon.
It’s such a spectacular place.
I’ve been feeling very lucky lately to live in Oregon for so many reasons: Gold Beach, Klamath Basin, OSF. Having Crater Lake in our back yard is a big one!
When my brother and two of his three spawnlings came to visit last summer we splurged on a boat ride to Wizard Island, choosing to be stranded on the volcanic rock for three hours.
This summer I want to go back and take the six-hour option instead.
I wrote a travel piece about it for the Oregonian which must have been published (since I got paid for it!) though I can’t find it on-line.
Their Website has been super screwy lately. For two months my byline disappeared and articles I wrote were attributed to other writers.
That’s a good way NOT to make a good impression when sending clips to an editor you’ve never worked with before. When the clips have someone else’s name on them, that is.
In any case, here’s a teaser from the Oregonian article. Hopefully they’ll get it up soon.
But ignore what I write here and GO see for yourself! Go to Wizard Island!
It’s worth the PLANE ride to this part of the country and the twenty years it will take you to pay off the credit card debt.
It’s that fabulous.
Last summer, my brother and I were stranded with our children on a desert island. Surrounded on all sides by deep, frigid water, with near-vertical cliffs towering above us, we were left with no way off the island, no cell phone service, no flush toilets and no food or water. Well, other than the lunches we’d packed…and the water surrounding us was the cleanest in the world—actually we drank some, it was delicious—but the rangers told us officially not to.
But hey, the rangers weren’t there on the island, and we couldn’t even get in touch with them for the duration of our three-hour tour.
And we all know what happens if something goes awry on a desert island when you’re supposed to be having a “three-hour tour. A three-hour tour…”
We were on Wizard Island in Crater Lake, and though The Skipper and The Professor weren’t with us, it was about the best adventure a family can have inside a National Park.
Crater Lake National Park welcomed about 415,000 visitors in 2008.
Most people who go to Crater Lake admire the sapphire water and the spectacular view from Rim Drive, the 33-mile road that encircles the caldera.
But when you hike down the side of the mountain to the water’s edge, take the boat ride around the lake, and swim in the frigid waters, it turns a merely scenic trip into an all-day volcano expedition.
This week I’m working on another travel piece for the Oregonian. This time about “a quaint little drinking town with a fishing problem” in what is known as the Oregon Coast’s Banana Belt…
Anyone know what town I’m talking about? I’ll spill the beans as soon as I finish the article and hear back from the editor…
Published: March 25, 2010
Last update: January 23, 2020
These photos are simply breathtaking. I would love to see it in person.