Jack and Carol's Epic Journey: Crater Lake and the North Fork of the Umpqua River

After finally checking off the Williamson River, we left Chiloquin and headed for the nearby Crater Lake National Park, the only national park in Oregon. Neither of us knew much about this park--obviously it has a lake in it, but that was about the extent of our foreknowledge. The drive up and into the park was spectacular. We stopped at a number of pullovers and view points to see some spectacular sights--deep canyons, fairytale-like giant trees, volcanic ash formations. We learned a lot about Crater Lake from the material the ranger gave us at the entry point at the South Entrance where we came in. Turns out that it was once a 12,000 ft volcano, now called Mt Mazama, a huge triangular mountain much like Mt Hood or Mt Rainier. About 7,000 years ago, the molten magma within this mountain built up unbearable pressure and the mountain blew its stack with an almost unbelievable amount of ash and lava erupting, laying waste to everything for hundreds of miles around (similar to the nearby Mt. Saint Helens eruption not so many years ago, but supposedly about 50 times more powerful and destructive). The Klamath Tribe Indians who are native to this area have an ancestral memory of this happening. They explain it in terms of their own belief system, but everything that's been passed down jibes with what geologists figure happened here--and some ancient Klamath-type braided moccasins have been found buried a good way under layers of the volcanic ash from that eruption so that proves they were definitely here for the Big Explosion.

Carol hugging one of the majestic, fairy-tale-like trees on the trail.

So, to continue, once the mountain blew its stack, it had nothing to hold it up from within, as all the magma was gone, and it just imploded, over a short time, like maybe a few hours! A huge 12,000-ft mountain just crashed down into itself and became a 6500-ft mountain with a giant empty crater in it, about 6 miles across. Over a long time, this crater filled up with water from rain and snow and became a spectacularly beautiful and peaceful lake--this is the deepest lake in the United States, folks, almost 2,000 ft deep! No streams or rivers flow into or out of the lake, so it is some of the purest water in the world, which causes its otherworldly royal blue color, which you just can't take your eyes off when you're viewing it in person. The lake has a perfect balance between snow/rain filling it up (average annual snowfall there is 44 ft) and evaporation and seepage, so the lake maintains its level consistently in an almost magical way.

When we got there, we first went to the large campground within the park boundary to secure a site for the night, since it was a Friday and people were coming in for a special day on Saturday--on two consecutive Saturdays in September, the Park closes the east rim drive to motorized traffic, allowing bicyclists and hikers to have the road to themselves. The hordes pour in for this, as bicycling is a religion in Oregon. We managed to get one of the last sites with full hookups, so we were happy campers. We then left the campground and headed on up to one of the two visitor centers to see the movie and see what else we could learn about the area. The movie was good, narrated by Peter Coyote and gave us a lot of information and really made us want to see the lake for ourselves. However, while we were in the visitor center it started to rain and got really foggy. We continued on with our sightseeing, however, driving the east rim in the opposite way from what most people do (always have to be different!). We did one beautiful hike in the light rain, through a magical forest with gigantic white-bark pine trees, and got a misty glimpse of a tiny section of the lake and a geological structure in the water that's called the Phantom Ship--it really did look like a phantom ship through the mist. But we never could see the classic lake view that everyone raves about.

Phantom ship in the mist.

The fog and rain just got worse and worse as we drove and we finally couldn't see much of anything! Nobody in their right minds would have been driving this route on this day--what does that say about us? At one point we took a side road to drive up to what was billed as the highest point in Oregon that you can drive to on a paved road--when we got there it was completely fogged out. The sign at the view point said you could see the entire lake from there. This is what we saw.

You had to have a great imagination to see the blue lake inside the crater.

We finally gave up and went back to the campsite, had some soup, and hunkered down in our lovely van in the rain. It was cold too--did we mention that? In fact, it had snowed about 6 inches on the summit.

Believe it or not, Jack has a real snowball he's about to throw at Carol.

When we got up in the morning our folding camp chair that we had left outside had a round disk of ice in the seat. Fortunately, however, the day was beautiful!! Sun shining, warming up fast--yay! After breakfast and breaking camp we headed off to finally get a decent view of the lake, and we sure did. In fact, lots of different views of the lake. Once you see this place, you can't take your eyes off it, as previously mentioned, so we walked around taking photos from many different vantage points.

The beauty of this place is staggering.

The deep blue lake perfectly reflects the eastern rim of the crater.

A cinder cone inside the crater.

Carol, as usual, was intrigued by the idea of climbing out to a scary-looking rocky point hanging out over the lake about 1000 feet up, and having Jack take a photo from a distance. There were three German youths hanging out at the same place but were too wussy to climb out on the rock. Carol showed them all up by sliding down the gravel bank on her butt and crawling out to the scary rock place (after doing a quick mental engineering calculation related to center of gravity) and hollering at Jack to take her picture quick! Then she scampered up on hands and knees back to safety.

Carol getting ready to slide on her butt down to that jagged rock ledge to the right,
which is actually about 500 feet above lake level,

She makes it down and then waves at me while the three German youths look on in amazement.

I told her not to do this, but she never listens to me.

After she left the spot to walk back to where Jack was, Jack saw one of the German boys decide to do it too, but he tried to walk down the steep, slippery gravel bank rather than slide on his butt, and slipped and almost went over the edge. Carol said she was glad she didn't see it and doubly glad he didn't fall to his death, as she would have felt guilty for egging him on.

We had a great time walking around and ooh-ing and aah-ing over the lake. We had lunch at the historic lodge, which has been there since 1915 or so. Beautiful park! Beautiful day!

A beautiful old guest hotel built in 1915.

In the back of the hotel are rows of rocking chairs where you can sit and ponder Crater Lake.

We left after lunch just as the bicycling crowds really started coming in. We left by the north entrance and headed toward the Steamboat Inn on the North Fork of the Umpqua River, the next river on Jack's list.

This river is a world-famous steelhead river and fishermen come from all over the world to fish it. Steelhead are rainbow trout who are born in fresh water streams but go to sea eventually and live in the ocean, for a couple of years at a time. They then are programmed to return to their native streams to spawn, like salmon. While in the ocean, they get very big and strong, and that's why so many people want to catch them. I'll let Jack tell you more about steelhead in his fishing stories.

Jack had booked a guide to fish this river on Sunday as you need special equipment for this type of fishing. We had also made a reservation to stay at the Steamboat Inn right on the river, a historic fishing lodge that's been there for decades, in the spot where the famous western author Zane Grey had his fishing camp and spent a lot of time. We arrived about 3 pm at the Inn and found our little streamside cabin overlooking the river, which is huge, emerald green, clear, rocky and has lots of rapids--a gorgeous big river, one of the prettiest we've ever seen. We climbed down the rocky hill to the water to get a closer look--the way the rocks are arranged, it almost seems like the whole hill has been carved into steps--very easy to climb down even though it's a steep hill. The folks at the Inn are very friendly and welcoming. The place is known for its good food. We had some soup for supper that was yummy and we made a reservation to have their special group dinner on Sunday night after Jack's day of steelhead fishing--it's served family style, just one entree chosen by the chef (although if you have special dietary needs they will accommodate you) and you sit together and chat with the other folks who've reserved this night. We had a relatively early night on Saturday since Jack had to get up early to meet his guide at 6:30 am.

The Steamboat Inn part of the river was a favorite haunt of Zane Grey who loved to fish here.

Our room with Jack's fishing gear on the bed.

The view from the room of the walk-around deck added a nice touch.

Outside on the deck you can view and listen to the roaring river below.

Out front a path led to a wonderful library which had all of Zane Grey's novels,

many of which were first editions.

We got up at 5:30 am. Funny how that's not so early when you are going fishing. My guide, Mark, had told me I needed wading boots with steel studs so I exchanged my felt-soled boots for a loaner pair of his studded boots. Mark had brought two spey rods, one rigged with a weighted line and a large blue and black streamer. The other spey rod was rigged with a floating line and a medium-sized popping type bug. Each of these rods were 13.5 feet long and were 8-weight rods. By comparison I have a 6-weight rod that is 8.5 feet long. The spey rods have two cork grip handles designed to be used by both hands. My rod has one cork handle and is designed to be held in one hand. Both spey rods used a 10-pound test leader. I usually use a 3.5 pound test leader.

I mention all of this because I spent a fair amount of time learning to cast with these spey rods. Mark explained that the idea was to cast the streamer down and across a likely steelhead "holding pool" and try to entice a rested 8 to 10 pounder to rise up and grab hold of the streamer. Mark told me he did not want me to "set the hook" if a steelhead struck the lure. The steelhead would set the hook by his ferocious strike and if I tried to set the hook, I would end up pulling the streamer out of his mouth. And at the end of each cast, I was to strip out about 2 feet of line before casting again. That way we would carefully cover all the area in the tail-water of the pool. Oh yes, hold onto the rod, as steelhead strikes were known to pull the rod out of the hands of a novice.

OK. I got all of that, but I still wasn't ready to go fishing. I had to learn how to cast with a spey rod. This is the tricky part and it takes a while to get it right. Mark said some people never get it. First you strip in the line with your left hand and then pinch it against the top handle with the right hand. Then with two hands you move the rod and weighted line upstream and with the same fluid motion move the rod back, and then with a strong forward motion move the rod and line quickly, stopping at 10 o'clock and let the weighted line pull out all the rest of the line. When I got it right, I could cast about 65 to 70 feet down and across the pool. After about 15 minutes, I was "good enough," according to Mark, to start fishing.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I learned early on why I needed wading shoes with studs. Imagine going down a 30-foot wet bank, with a 45 to 60 degree slope, strewn with gravel and rocks with a 13.5 foot rod in one hand. Going down is fairly easy, as the studs help a lot in the same way that studded shoes help you on ice. Gravity helps you going down, but only leg muscles and hands get you back up. Every time I did this as we went from pool to pool, I was thankful that I had on studded boots.

Casting a weighted spey rod and climbing up and down river banks takes it out of you. But hey, this was a beautiful river and I was having fun and expecting one of the 8-10 pounders to chop down on my fly at any moment. On one hole I had an exciting moment. Apparently a larger steelhead moved up from the depth to take a look at my streamer. He must have scared the daylights out of a 14 to 16 inch trout who came out of the water in a giant leap to get away. Alas, the steelhead did not take my streamer.

I fished at least 10 holding pools with no strikes. I did get better with my casting and Mark said I was doing everything right. Try as he may, Mark was not able to talk a steelhead into taking my lure and our four hours on the water soon came to an end. Mark tried to explain that you had to do a lot of fishing before you ever catch a steelhead. But I already knew that. I fished the Sacramento back in 1999 for 8 hours and did catch a steelhead, which I fought for 15 minutes. I thought I had him worn out. As the guide ran out to net him, the steelhead made one last desperate lunge and broke my 5-lb test leader. I'll try again on the Deschutes River, when my fishing buddy, Bud Hennessy, gets here on Sunday to fish that river together.

Mark and I at the end of my half day of fishing for steelhead.

I still had to catch at least one fish to check off this river. So the next morning Carol came with me to a beautiful section of the river next to the Steamboat Inn. There I caught four rainbows in the 8 to 10-inch range on nymphs trailed from a dry fly.

Fishing near the Steamboat Inn.

Fish on!

Maybe a 9-incher rainbow. After living in this river for about a year, this little guy will grow up to be a steelhead.

It was a great relief when Jack caught his fish in the North Umpqua, since we didn't know how long we'd have to hang around this area till he finally caught one! We needed to get some provisions and get some email and make some phone calls, so after he caught the trout we decided to drive into the nearest city of some size, Roseburg, and do our errands. On the way, we stopped to walk to a waterfall and see if we could spot some steelheads jumping up it. Jack actually saw one, but Carol was looking at a big logging truck go by and missed it. Roseburg seemed like a nondescript little town but after buying our groceries, we found a sweet campground on the outskirts, in a winery area and next to a county park, where Carol could do some laundry. They also had very good wifi.

Where we watched for steelhead moving up these falls.

On Tuesday morning we drove back toward Steamboat, since that's the general direction of the next river on the list, the Deschutes, but also because we wanted to try to find the Big Bend on Steamboat Creek. There's a big pool there where bunches (hundreds) of large steelhead hang out and wait for conditions to be right to move on upstream to spawn. This pool has been overfished, dynamited and desecrated for ages by people who don't know any better, and somehow this fish keep coming back. Now there are laws protecting the fish in this creek because it's a crucial spawning area, and no one is allowed to fish here. There's a guy who lives at this pool in his Airstream camper for most of the year, and watches and protects these vulnerable fish from poaching and general human evil and goofiness. He's been doing this for 18 years. We didn't really know what to expect, and we'd heard that the protector guy was kind of weird, but we set off to find him and his pool of steelhead. Steamboat Creek Road is a steep, winding, mountain road and we weren't exactly sure how far up the Big Bend pool was. We stopped to ask for some directions from a couple in a camper who were guarding another road closure and they said to keep going up for several more miles.

Finally we spotted the Airstream camper and parked the van. A friendly red dog greeted us and escorted us down toward the stream. We heard voices from under a canopy as we walked down a couple of steps built into the hillside. Suddenly we could see the pool down the hill in front of us filled with at least 100 long fat shadowy fish all schooled together in a green-tinted but perfectly clear and beautiful pool. Awesome! The Fish Guardian, who looked to be about 60 or so, was sitting at a sort of homemade-looking desk under his canopy and another guy, about 50 or 55, dressed in khaki ranger-like clothes, was sitting next to him and they were chatting about the fish. They seemed nice and included us in their conversation--they obviously knew each other well and were conducting a friendly punning competition. This turned out to be a most memorable afternoon of sitting and being mesmerized by the fish behavior playing out in front of us and asking any questions that came into our minds of these two knowledgeable guys, Lee (Fish Guardian) and Dave (friend and who happens to be a fish biologist by training). It was a peaceful, almost spiritual scene, and we certainly learned scads about steelhead and other trout. Wow!