Crater Lake, Part 4: Sunset at Crater Lake

By the time we had finished on the Castle Crest Wildflower trail, we had basically come full circle around Crater Lake and were back near our campsite at the Mazamas Campground. It was about 3:00 and not sufficiently late enough to go back to the campsite, so we headed back up to the rim and took a look around at the Crater Lake Lodge. After a very quick peek inside the gift shop and snack bar (to see if anything looked appealing enough to turn into a late lunch -- nothing did) we walked out and took a look down at the lake from the rim and did a bit of people-watching, then went over to the hotel just to see what it looked like inside. On our way back to the car we stopped into the visitor center, where we saw a sign (much to our disappointment) that due to "critical staff shortages" there would be no boat tours of the lake for the next three days. So much for our idea of avoiding the crowds by doing this tour on Tuesday morning. Our cameras remained behind in the car, so there are no pictures of this part of the trip. From here, we go back to the campsite for dinner and then head back out later in the evening to take some pictures of the Sunset around the rim.

In short, quite a few of these pictures came out beautifully. I wish I could've been at about 30 different places simultaneously to take the photos of this Sunset, but I'll have to settle with the two locations we chose. We initially tried to get photos from a higher vantage point closer to the East side of the North rim, but when we got there the winds were just too strong for us to set anything up without risking losing camera equipment and/or freezing to death.

At any rate, enjoy the photos: