Bergjord Boarding

July 29 – August 7 2016

By: Luke

Samie and I made it to our campground in Washington. It was pitch black and we are starting to get good at setting up our tent by phone light. Much like other mornings we were surprised when we opened up our tent. We didn’t realize how close we were to the lake and how beautiful our surroundings were. Unlike other night we had quite the scare driving to our campsite.

We had punched in our destination on GPS but we would lose service here and there. It seemed to come back and remind us of where to turn just in time, but when were were getting very close we hit a dead spot and had to get resourceful.

This was after a very full day at Glacier National Park and 8+ hours of driving so we got anxious even faster than usual. We must have mad a wrong turn somewhere because when we got service again it started sending us down gravel roads. Then when were convinced it couldn’t be worse, it told us to park our car and start walking to our destination… We were convinced my phone had been hacked and murderers were waiting in the tall grass for their next victims.

We backed out of there incredibly fast and backtracked to where we believe we went wrong and Samie navigated us to our sanctuary. We were pooped and passed out more than went to sleep. And a good thing too, because we had a very exciting day in front of us.

We had to start early yet again to make the most out of our day. Samie could catch up on sleep while we drove and I ran on caffeine, salty snacks, and theta waves.

The plan for day 4 was to spend the afternoon in Portland, OR and then make our ways to Crater Lake National Park to camp.

I don’t remember a lot about the drive there. I think that speaks more about my level of consciousness than the landscape. But I do remember listening and singing along to the Psych: The Musical soundtrack.

Rolling into Portland we found a parking garage with one spot left on the top floor. Our luck had started to equal back out. We even found an incredible coffee place named “Barista” within walking distance. After our lattes we found Rock Bottom Brewery nearby and stopped in for lunch and a drink. After that we had to hit the highway again for the next leg.

We were very excited about the length of this drive. Being almost 4 hours it was set to be one of our shortest. Thinking about it now I would begrudge that drive, but coming off of multiple double digit driving days this wasn’t too bad.

We parked at the North Junction Lookout to get our first views of this incredible lake. We were saw first was park rangers telling us about a wild fire that blocked a section of road around the park.

Our campsite was at Mazama and the fastest way to get there was the West Rim Drive. Sure enough that was the stretch of road that was blocked off due to safety concerns about that fire. So we had to drive all the way around the other side of the lake adding more than an hour of night driving.

Like always there was a silver lining to this situation. We had gotten there right before sunset and the smoke in the area made the landscape so uniquely beautiful. The smoke brought out rich and dark colors of this sunset. Where there would usually be orange and pink there was red and purple. We were treated to many incredible sunsets on this road trip and this could easily be number one.

Sure enough we made it to our campsite without repeating the horror story of the night before. We got some much needed rest and got ready to explore this one of a kind park in the morning.