Life at Crater Lake

I have now been at my new job at Crater Lake National Park for 5 weeks (time sure does fly). I'd hoped to work for the National Park Service for years now, and it's so exciting that it's finally a reality! I work for the Botany Division as a Biological Science Technician on the Invasive Vegetation Management crew, which is a fancy way of saying we remove invasive weeds. The first couple of weeks involved studying for our pesticide applicator exams, since we will be using herbicides to treat some of the weeds later in the season. Once we all passed our tests the job got much more exciting because we actually got to do field work instead of sitting in the office all day. Now most of what we've been doing is going to sites with known populations of weeds and hand pulling them, and the other part of the job is surveying burned areas to see if new populations of weeds are establishing. You could say it's not the most glamorous of work, but I don't mind because we get to be outside all day and basically get paid to go hiking.

My first glimpse of the lake on my first day of work. Beautiful!

And what a place it is to hike! I'd been to Crater Lake once before about 3 years ago and loved it, and it continues to amaze me. The lake is breathtaking just like I remembered, and the landscape of Oregon in general is beautiful. I'm falling in love with the gorgeous mountains and conifer forests, and I love getting to explore it, both at work and in my off time.

One aspect I was not quite prepared for was that it was basically still winter when I arrived at the end of May. There was about 10 feet of snow on the ground in most places! Quite a shock for someone who spent the last two winters in Costa Rica and Florida, respectively, and had just come from a job in Louisiana! Even now the last few feet of the snow have not melted from the rim of the crater, and there are patches of snow about a foot deep lingering around the housing area as well. Most of the trails in the park are still covered in snow, so unfortunately I haven't gotten to do nearly as much hiking as I was hoping by this point, but once all the snow is gone my goal is to hike every trail. The road between the south entrance, which is open all year, and the north entrance just recently opened for the season, and the road around the rim is still not completely cleared of snow, but they are making progress and about half of it is now drive-able. The fire pit in the middle of all the seasonal employee houses finally emerged from the snow this week, and we've already made use of it a couple of times, so I'm sure that will be a popular weekend hangout throughout the season.

For the most part I've been staying in the park on the weekends except for going to town for groceries, but I have taken a few trips. One of my first weekends I took a day trip with some coworkers and hiked Grizzly Peak, which is about 2 hours south of here, near the border with California. It was a moderately easy hike with some great views (pictures below). Last weekend I went on a weekend trip with two other girls to Silver Falls State Park and then over to the coast. That was amazing and the scenery blew me away! That trip deserves a post of it's own, so I will write about that in more detail later.

So that's the general rundown of what I've been up to recently, and I've settled in nicely now to the routine of the job. Here are some pictures of the park and my activities so far.

This is what most of the roofs looked like when I arrived. Cool snow sculptures!

The view from my second story balcony when I first moved in. You can't even see the first floor of the house next door.

And then we got more snow...this was June 10!

The snow dusted trees afterwards were so beautiful. It was nice to get a taste of winter after a couple years of mostly not seeing snow, I just didn't expect to experience winter when the calendar said it was nearly summer. 

I don't think I will ever get tired of this view

The water is so clear and bright blue, it's incredible!

View from part way up Garfield Peak trail (as far as we could get with all the snow)

Even the views away from the lake are great!

Another view of the lake, this time from Discovery Point

Now for some work-related pictures: this is our entire crew the first or second week of work (we have since lost two people who left for other jobs)

A group of us surveying a burned area for weeds

Me taking in the view. You can't ask for a better "office" than this.

And just for good measure, some more pictures of the lake (can you tell I'm going to have way too many pictures of it by the end of the season? :P )

It just never gets old

The same general view, more recently with less snow. Soon it will all be melted, but we're not quite there yet.

And now onto recreational hiking: a beautiful meadow on the Grizzly Peak trail.

Me at an overlook from Grizzly Peak

We could see all the way to Mt. Shasta in California

So that's a quick taste of my life right now, and I will write again (hopefully soon) about my trip to the coast. This weekend we have five days off because of our normal 3-day weekends plus two days for 4th of July. Instead of taking a long trip I decided to stick around and work some overtime hours Saturday and Sunday to make some extra money, but then Monday and Tuesday I'm planning to do my first solo backpacking trip! A woman I stayed with in Norway when I traveled around Europe is hiking the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) right now and will be arriving here in the next few days, so that inspired me do a one-night trip of my own on the PCT. I'll hike south towards her, camp for one night, and hopefully meet up with her for us to hike back to the park together. I will also update you all on that adventure when I get the chance. Thanks as always for reading!