Diamond Lake (2)

Our final Oregon stop on this trip is a do over at Diamond Lake. Funny how it’s the things that go awry that stick with you. The last time we were here, I struggled with the altitude a bit (the campground is right about 5,000′). It wasn’t a huge deal, but it was enough to leave an impression. I was conscious of downing lots of water as we drove up, made sure not to have any alcohol, and all was well. I’ve proven to myself multiple times that, as long as I do those two things, altitude doesn’t need to cause concern. I wonder if I’ll remember that next time.

We had time in the day after arrival, so we got in a bike ride around the lake. As this was the first time I’ve had my e-bike here, I actually got to see the whole loop. The first stop, after riding through the lengthy campground loops, is the lodge at the north end. We checked out the little store there and discovered they sell Mint It’s Its, among other things. That is a rare treat. Nothing else spoke to us, but they carry an assortment of snacks and grocery type items, as well as little camping supplies or gifts. No produce at all, but they did have some limited dairy and lunch meats.

On we rode down the western side. This part of the loop takes you through the Thielsen View campground. It’s nice, but there are no hookups, better cell service, or lakeside sites, so I don’t think we would choose this one over the forest service sites on the eastern bank. Then the trail leaves the lake and goes inland most of the way until you get to the south side of the lake. There are so many trees down here. I knew there was a big fire that tore through a few years back, but I guess there must have been some big storms to knock down so many trees. Lots and lots of them just seem to have snapped in half. Some turned over at the roots, most not yet cleaned up. I wonder if the reduction in forest service personnel has impacted their ability to clean up the trails. That is sad.

There is another campground at the south end of the lake called Broken Arrow. The sites here are larger and easier for big rigs to get into. There are no hookups, but bathrooms with flush toilets, and a dump. Again, no particular draw for us to stay here, although we did end up filling potable water at the dump because the one in our campground had a broken handle. The one advantage going for Broken Arrow is that there is excellent cell service for both of us in the Day Use area. We walked over there several times to check in with things.

There are two opportunities for ice cream around the lake. One is at the little pizza place on the south side. They sell scooped Umpqua with sixteen flavors to choose from. Their blueberry cheesecake and mint chip are especially good, with little chunks of cheesecake in the former, and big chunks of chocolate in the latter. Yum! The second opportunity for ice cream is at the lodge on the north end. They sell breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with standard fare selections, but also have soft serve chocolate, vanilla, or swirl. We had that twice.

From Diamond Lake, it’s a relatively short drive to Crater Lake. We parked on the beginning of East Rim Road and discussed just riding from there to see how far we could get. We weren’t sure what roads had been plowed and open to traffic yet, so we wanted to talk to a knowledgeable ranger before trying to bike it. This turned out to be frustrating, as we got three different wrong answers from three different volunteers at two different visitor centers. The visitor center in Rim Village is teeny tiny and the person there basically said you can’t bike anything. We didn’t believe that and drove down to the main visitor center, about three miles down the road. Things were starting to get crowded, and it may be that the volunteers were feeling overwhelmed. One of them told us our best bet was to ride the south section closed to cars because of construction. The other said for sure not to do that and that the only good time to ride is during the annual Ride The Rim event. We ended up just driving back to where we started at East Rim Road. There was a park ranger passing through and we got the closest to accurate information from him. Yes, you can ride any of the roads open to cars. It is no fun, and not advised, to ride the section between Rim Village and Steel Visitor Center because it is the most trafficked by cars, and is also very narrow and deathy in places. After Steel Visitor Center the road is closed due to construction. You don’t want to ride that because it is literally under construction. It is also far from any views of the lake over there.

Really, the best section to ride is East Rim, which is what we did and where we had parked to begin with. There is a lot less car traffic, stunning views of the lake, and good roads with hardly any edginess. Though the ranger said we could keep going on the East Rim after the sign saying closed for construction, we found a person stationed there, stopping bicycles and anyone else who thought they might be able to go through. She works for the construction company and said they really don’t like cyclists mixing with construction equipment and that someone almost got run over. Fair enough. All told, we were able to get in an 18 mile ride, out and back, and had a really nice time.

At one of the viewpoints, people were pointing out a floating stick in the water they called “The Old Man.” This is a floating log, thirty feet tall, with a short section that sticks up above the water. It has been floating around in the lake since at least 1896. There is all kinds of lore and superstition surrounding this mysterious floating log and apparently it is a thing to try to always spot him in that deep rich expanse of blueness.

We spent another day biking around Diamond Lake, in reverse direction, and also got to try out a couple of short hikes. I mentioned this in my blog post last time, and I’ll mention it again: there are mosquitos here. This made hiking less pleasant than biking. Also, because there are so many downed trees, you have to go over or around barriers fairly often. We were content to ditch the hiking and outrun the skeeters on our bikes.

For dinners, we enjoyed our Vadouvan curry chicken and mango chutney fave, as well as a mango chutney, jalapeño grilled cheese with a pear, cucumber and lettuce salad. We also did an indoor dish of sesame brown rice and chicken, with peach pan sauce, and broccoli flavored with soy sauce and lemon juice. All outstanding!

On the equipment front, Richard proved his extreme Tech Support skills while on the road. Our projector sometimes acts funny by not pulling power from the pluggy thing while it’s running. Instead, it sometimes uses its internal battery, which has a maximum duration of 90 minutes. This can be frustrating if you’re watching a two hour movie. Richard has hobbled it along so it mostly works, but it conked out in the middle of an exciting episode of “White Lotus,” so he dove in to see if he could fix it. He carries a soldering iron as part of our travel tool kit. This is primarily for coffee machine emergencies, but it came in handy for the projector. He correctly diagnosed the problem as a loose connection in the power cord, right near the barrel connector (“pluggy thing that plugs into the projector thingy”). He used a campground bathroom with a power outlet as his laboratory and successfully healed the patient! I’m super impressed he could figure all that out and fix it on the road. My only solution was to buy a new projector. This is why we have money problems.

We had a fantastic stay at this beautiful lake. It’s funny. We’ve stopped at Emigrant Lake, Lost Creek Lake, and Diamond Lake, and not once has my boat come out of the roof box. It was almost hot enough one of the days, but then it got a teeny bit windy and I wimped out. Place your bets on whether I stop my whining and make it happen on this trip. Our next stop does not have a lake at least. Bye bye Oregon! See you later!

Total miles from Joseph H Stewart: 46, 14 mpg (or so, I lost the data, but it was all uphill), 1 hour 49 min. Site M17 no hookups. 1 bar LTE for both but didn’t really do anything. No wifi in lodge or anywhere around. Really good cell for both of us at the day use area of the Broken Arrow campground on the south side of the lake. Verizon got good signal from the lodge, but not ATT. Good dump but potable water handle broken. Got water in the dump at Broken Arrow.