Crater Lake day #3

Being from the Midwest we thought mosquitoes only got bad around dusk; apparently with the conditions just right in Crater Lake they swarm at all times of day (not a fun thing to wake up to at dawn).  Even as we went to sleep the night before we could hear a constant humming of the mosquitoes trying to get into our tent.  But enough complaining about bugs...  We had a few hikes we wanted to do around Crater Lake, but the majority of them were still closed due to snow.  We drove halfway around the rim (the east half was closed) and hiked down to the only point you could legally access the lake.  Holy crap that water was blue.  The lake is barely above freezing and is something like 2,000 feet deep (Lake Superior is about 1,300 for comparison) and not to get into the physics of it all, but this is why it is sooooo blue. 

Even though we were freezing when we woke up, at this point it was close to 80 degrees so we got a nice big ice cream cone to end the day.  We decided to go back to the campsite and brave the mosquitoes for a bit and hang out before our evening’s event.  The Park Service was hosting a talk by a geologist/volcanologist named Charles Bacon.  We were interested (because we are dorks) and decided to check it out, but were nervous we would be the only two people there.  We were wrong.  The place was packed wall to wall (maybe due to the mosquito onslaught outside) and the talk was great.  Then bed time after killing a few rouge mosquitoes in the tent with Oso’s help.