Diamond Lake and High Cascades

Above, The Beast at the Diamond Lake RV Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

During my 2017 Great American Eclipse trip, I headed into Oregon to the Crater Lake National Park Area. Since I didn't have any campsite reservations at the national park, I stayed instead at the nearby Diamond Lake RV Park.

The visit into the area was slightly marred due to wildfires in the area. A firefighter encampment was about a mile away from the RV park.

Still, the area was beautiful and Diamond Lake is a great place to visit. Beware! There was no WiFi during my stay and I found Oregon to have non-existent to spotty (at best) cell coverage from the time I left Idaho to Bend, Oregon.

The News-Review has an article on Diamond Lake.

It begins with:

The High Cascades in eastern Douglas County offer stunning beauty with mountains, forests, wildlife, waterfalls and some of the best high lakes fishing in the Northwest.
The biggest lake in Douglas County is about 80 miles east of Roseburg. Diamond Lake is known as the Gem of the Cascades and the 10,000 acre lake’s fishery is legendary. 

The area draws visitors from all over the world. Because of the close proximity to Crater Lake National Park, many people from around the country and from many other countries will stay at Diamond Lake and make the short 20 mile trip to visit the national park. 

“We, here at the lodge, have 41 cabins and 50 motel rooms,” said John Jonesburg, marketing and events coordinator for Diamond Lake. “And there are 100 summer homes on the west shore that are privately owned.” 

The resort has motel rooms, cabins, studio units, campsites and an RV park where visitors can make their home base to see the whole area.

To read more, go here. 

Earthquake Reported At Crater Lake National Park

Above, Wizard Island at Crater Lake National Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Did you know that Crater Lake in Oregon is still considered to be an active volcano? 

Well, it is. It is also part of the Cascade Range of volcanic peaks which include Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Shasta and Lassen Peak, among others.

Researchers have reported earthquakes this past week, the first since 2015.

According to KTVL:

CRATER LAKE, Ore. — Scientists are excited about the ground rumblings at Crater Lake National Park but it's more academic than any threat to the public. 

On June 9, at approximately 1800 UTC (11 a.m. Pacific) an M 1.3 earthquake occurred under Crater Lake at a depth approximately 2 km below sea level. 

"You're looking at three or four miles down from the surface," Seismologist Wes Thelen said. 

The event was followed by around two dozen aftershocks over the next 12 hours. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington poured over the spectrogram and the readings from the four seismometers in the caldera including one on Wizard Island.

To read more, go here. 

Kilauea Stokes Fears of West Coast Eruptions

Above, California's Mount Shasta in the morning haze. The article says Mount Shasta
"is the most dangerous, in part because it is surrounded by towns." Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The current eruptions of Kilauea in Hawaii has people on the West Coast jittery about the volcanoes along the Cascade Range.

Fox News reported:

Multiple fissures emitting minor lava spatter opened Saturday on Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, heightening fears of an impending major eruption and prompting a warning by the US Geological Survey of more disaster to come. 

The eruption of a Hawaii volcano in the Pacific "Ring of Fire" also has experts warily eyeing volcanic peaks on America's West Coast that are also part of the geologically active region. 

The West Coast is home to an 800-mile chain of 13 volcanoes, from Washington state's Mount Baker to California's Lassen Peak. They include Mount St. Helens, whose spectacular 1980 eruption in the Pacific Northwest killed dozens of people and sent volcanic ash across the country, and massive Mount Rainier, which towers above the Seattle metro area. 

America's most dangerous volcanoes are all part of the Ring of Fire, and most are on the West Coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Besides Kilauea, they include: Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier in Washington; Mount Hood and South Sister in Oregon; and Mount Shasta and Lassen Volcanic Center in California.

Above, Lassen Peak peeks over a ridge. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

To read more, go here. 

Mount St. Helens Is Rumbling

Above, Mount Shasta as seen through an early morning haze. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

People around the area of Mount St. Helens in Washington are getting jittery as earthquake activity has increased.

Forbes.com reported:

Since New Years Day Mount St. Helens has experienced 40 earthquakes within its vicinity as tremors continue every few hours. The most powerful earthquake was a magnitude 3.9 that occurred around midnight west coast time about 5 miles from Mount St. Helens and 23 miles from the town of Morton. 

The 3.9 magnitude earthquake was felt in Portland but there were no reported injuries or damage. Since that earthquake there have been 16 more earthquakes, averaging about every half hour with magnitudes from 0.6 to 2.6. 

It is common to experience swarms of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens. While it is certainly not a sign of an impending eruption, the earthquakes are a result of an active volcanic system.

Above, Lassen Peak was the last volcano to erupt in the lower 48 states
 before the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Mount St. Helens is part of the Cascade Range of volcanic peaks that also includes Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Lassen Peak and Mount Shasta.

To read more, go here.

Mount Shasta

Above, a view of Mount Shasta along U.S. 97 north of Weed, California. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

On the way south from Oregon while en route to Lassen Volcanic National Park, I passed by another volcano in Cascade Range of volcanoes, Mount Shasta. 

From Wikipedia:

Mount Shasta (Karuk: Úytaahkoo or "White Mountain") is a potentially active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, in the U.S. state of California. At an elevation of 14,179 feet (4321.8 m), it is the second-highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth-highest in California. Mount Shasta has an estimated volume of 85 cubic miles (350 km3), which makes it the most voluminous stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. 

The mountain and its surrounding area are managed by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Shasta–Trinity National Forest.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey:

Mt. Shasta is a majestic, steep-sided stratovolcano located about 97 km (60 mi) north of Redding along the I-5 corridor in Northern California. It is the most voluminous of all the Cascade Range volcanoes, and the towns of Weed, Mt Shasta City, and McCloud lie in the shadow of its 4,317 m (14,163 ft) high snow- and ice-clad edifice, which also holds the headwaters of the Upper Sacramento River. Mount Shasta began forming on the remnants of an older, similar volcano that collapsed 300,000 to 500,000 years ago. The collapse spawned one of the largest landslides known on Earth, covering more than 440 km2 (170 mi2) of Shasta Valley to the northeast. Activity over the last 300,000 years includes long intervals of quiet interrupted by shorter spans of frequent eruptions. Eruptions at about 11,000 years ago built Black Butte and Shastina on the western flanks of Mount Shasta. In the last few millennia, smaller eruptions have broken out at the volcano’s summit and from vents on its upper east flank. USGS scientists are working on constraining the age of the most recent eruption. Preliminary work indicates the volcano erupted in the past 200-300 years. Hot springs and volcanic gases seep from the summit indicating a relatively young and still-hot system. Non-volcanic shedding of young volcanic rock and ash from Mount Shasta’s steep slopes occurs during heavy rainfall or glacial floods. In the last 1,000 years, more than 70 mudflows have inundated stream channels. The record of eruptions over the last 10,000 years suggests that, on average, at least one eruption occurs every 800 to 600 years at Mt Shasta. USGS and UNAVCO seismic and geodetic networks provide real-time volcano monitoring data. Earthquake activity has been low for the last few decades and ground deformation is negligible.

Lassen Peak

Above, Lassen Peak erupting on May 22, 1915.

A year and ten days from now will mark 100 years since Lassen Peak (Mount Lassen, as it is commonly known) in Northern California erupted.

It was the last volcanic eruption in the Cascade Range of volcanoes in the Northwest U.S. until Mount St. Helens in Oregon erupted in 1980 (I have a small bottle of volcanic ash from that eruption).

In 1968, my parents and I camped at Mt. Lassen National Park. It is a beautiful area and we did some boating on the park's Manzanita Lake. The other thing I remember most about the park (besides the Bumpass Pass trail and the visitor center displays) was that it seemed to be overrun by the mule deer population.