Crater Lake Travel in Winter

It was Thanksgiving Day. 

As Indians we do not celebrate Thanksgiving but yes we were eagerly waiting for this day because we have two days holiday and it is a long weekend!!!.

So, we planned to go for a long drive in our three weeks old new car!. The destination we decided was one of the beautiful place -  Crater Lake. 

Our plan was to go to Painted hills in Bend on the first day, second day to Crater Lake and finally drive back home via Portland on third day. 

Without knowing this plan would turn into one of the most adventurous trip, we started on Thursday early morning all excited!.

We crossed freeway I405 South, drove to I90 East, from there took Route 82 and then Route 97 where the road conditions were good. From 97 we had to take the internal road Route 206 where the roads were some what snowy and were not cleaned. The major challenge to drive in these roads is due to the black ice formed on the surface of the roadways. We switched off the vehicle stability which is recommended while driving in these kind of roads. We had to drive 50 miles in this route and the drive was breathtaking!. On the either side of the roads you could only see snow as if someone had showered white flowers all over the land. With the White sky and snow on either side of the roads we felt like we were entering into some next world!.

There were no vehicles traveling in our direction and hardly we encountered 4-5 vehicles in the opposite direction. We were little bit anxious but since it was daytime we gathered enough courage to drive further. One more thing that made us panic is as the vehicles in the opposite direction passed they were making hand signs (looked more like a V-sign) looking at us. We knew V-sign symbolizes Victory sign but what were they signalling?!!!. Was that a warning for us about the roads ahead?  Were they asking us to head back?. I started to Google about the hand signs but alas I could not find anything. Then we stopped one vehicle that was passing us and inquired about the road condition. They told  we can drive 8 miles ahead, then we will get a city and the roads are good. They wished us Happy Thanksgiving as they left. That moment a flash striked our mind!. We assumed that all the other drivers who made hand gestures were actually wishing us for Thanksgiving. Me and my husband were laughing at ourselves for our insane assumptions.

We drove 8 miles ahead and reached a city called Condon. We stopped at the fuel station to fuel the car and checked with the person there about the road to Painted Hills. He told the weather will be cloudy and it was snowing for last 2 days and that roads will be not cleaned. We still had to drive 2 more hours to Painted Hills. We thought to take a chance and started driving further. We took Route 19 from there and drove for about 20 min. The road was still more worst and we decided not to take risk and head back directly to the hotel in Bend. Now we had to drive back in the same way we came. We again drove 50 miles in the same scenic 206 Route, then took 97 Route where we got stuck in traffic for about 1 hr. A large 8-wheel truck had skid and fell off onto the road due to bad snowy roads. We drove carefully and finally reached Hotel in the night. We had totally drove 500 miles in one day!

Next day, It was 10 in the morning when we started from Hotel, we were late by 2 hours from the time that we had planned!. Due to the persistent travel on the previous day I had headache and nausea on which i can blame entirely for getting delayed. In spite of all these hassles our journey continued towards Crater lake. From Hotel we took Route 97 South and from there we took the deviation to Route 62. The roads were snowy and at one point of time while taking the right turn our car got skid and went off to other lane of the road. Luckily it stopped at the other side of the road and there were no vehicles coming in the opposite direction (I was sleeping in the car so did not even realize these things happened!).  Even with these road conditions I must say the drive was heavenly!. It was forest area and the trees were entirely decorated by the snow. The view was really enticing.

I could not enjoy the drive fully because of my sickness and I am really regretting that even today. With all these nuisance we finally reached Rim village visitor center. This is the only point to view the Crater lake in Winter and the rim drive around the lake will be closed in this season. It was freezing cold and the temperature was -11 degree. We managed to stay outside for about half an hour to savor the elegance of the nature.

Crater lake

 It was 3 in the afternoon.  Since it becomes dark early evening we hurried up. The hotel was booked at Albany, Oregon and the drive was around 4 hours. We drove on Route 62 for a while and then took Route 227 which was internal road again. It was forest, and there were no signs of any residency. There were neither any vehicles in the road. All these made the drive more scarier. As we were driving fearfully suddenly we saw a group of around 15 people standing in the middle of the road blocking us. It was dreadful situation!. Gods grace, they dispersed as we neared them. But why did they block us?! Were they just playing prank or something else!. To reach the Highway we had to drive 40 miles more and the countdown started. All kind of filmy imaginations started popping in our head as to what if they follow us? or what if there is one more gang ahead or what if the car gets stuck in the middle of the road?!. Praying in our minds, driving on snowy roads on a scary night we were counting down every single minute to reach the freeway.

 At last we reached freeway (I5 North) safely and arrived at hotel around 9 pm. We remembered that we did not had lunch nor ate anything apart from breakfast in the morning (I did not had breakfast as well!). We had dinner and went to bed early. 

On the third day there was no much plan, just to shop around in Portland and drive back to home. Even I recovered from travel stress and our journey continued towards Portland. We stopped at Woodburn Premium Outlet for shopping and after around 2 hrs of shopping started driving towards home. It was 3 in the afternoon. We had a lunch stop and from there drove continuously for 4 hours to home. 

Once we reached home we decided to be more careful while planning the trips next time, also not to over-travel and deteriorate our health and ruin the fun.

Regardless of all fuss that had got created we had  a sense of pride, lots of learning and wonderful memorable experience!.