Day 45 - La Pine to Klamath Falls, Oregon - 108 Miles

As we approach the Fourth of July holiday, things are getting a bit dodgy when we try to find a camp spot for the night. Last night when we rolled into the La Pine County camp grounds, the girl in the entrance shack told us that she had four spots available as far as she knew, and two of them were reserved already. We squeaked in just under the wire.

This afternoon we had an even tougher time finding a spot. It being a Monday, we thought that most everyone who had gone camping this past weekend had now gone home. Au Contraire! Evidently people have reserving camp spaces for all this week and into the Fourth of July weekend. This makes it really tough to find a spot.

We started looking as soon as we left the Crater Lake area where we spent much of the day. The very first camp we came across had absolutely no spaces left at 3:00 p.m. and had no suggestions for us, forcing us to travel on down the highway. The next camp was one suggested by Concetta's iPhone, but when we arrived we noted that cell phone reception was almost nil. Having experienced that bit of inconvenience last night, we weren't thrilled to put up with it again tonight. Without a cell phone signal we can count on, we'd have no signal for the internet device, which means no way to post the blog.

No internet reception meant we kept moving. Next we trusted Ms. GPS to take us to a camp, which she did with a great deal of alacrity. But alas, once we arrived we saw immediately that it was a mobile home park for permanent residences, not a park for overnight RVers.

We next trusted Ms. GPS to take us to the local KOA camp, which she did without further adieu. But when I went to the office the young man there said, "Sorry, no sites that would accommodate our 32-foot length adequately. With a heavy heart I retraced my steps to the RV and climbed aboard. "No sites available," I told Concetta when she asked if I'd been successful.

With that we drove into the park in order to get back to the entrance. But as we drove I could see that they had lots of sites, though many without full hookups. Maybe some were reserved, but ALL of them couldn't be spoken for. At Concetta's urging, I stopped at the front gate again and went inside to inquire if they hadn't been mistaken about having no sites. This time I ran into a more senior employee, and he thought that perhaps one of the sites I had seen would probably work for us. With that he signed us up, and told me to follow him to the site.

Once we pulled in, we discovered we fit just fine and actually had room to spare. The site didn't have a sewer connection, but it won't slow us down too much to use the dump station in the morning. We thanked the guy profusely and counted our lucky stars that we weren't going to have to stay in the Walmart parking lot tonight.

"We chose Oregon Route 97 this weekend for it’s proximity to the northern entrance road to that most glorious of all deep-water lakes, Crater Lake. To quote the National Park newspaper, “Crater Lake National Park protects the deepest lake in the United States. Fed by rain and snow (but no rivers or streams), the lake is considered to be the cleanest large body of water in the world. The water is exceptional for its clarity and intense blue color.”

"The lake rests inside a caldera formed approximately 7,700 years ago when a 12,000-foot-tall volcano collapsed following a major eruption. The eruption may have been the largest in North America in the past 640,000 years. Later (smaller) eruptions formed Wizard Island, a cinder cone near the southwest shore."

"The park is central to the cultural traditions of local American Indian tribes, whose ancestors, according to legend, witnessed the lake's formation. Today, old-growth forests blanket the volcano's outer slopes, harboring a wide variety of plants and animals, including several rare species. The park provides unique opportunities for scientific study and public enjoyment."

"The first European-American to see Crater Lake was lucky to survive the experience. On June 12, 1853, gold prospector John Wesley Hillman was riding his mule up a long sloping mountain. He was lost, tired, and not paying attention to the terrain ahead. Suddenly, his mule stopped. Hillman sat up and found himself on the edge of a cliff, gazing in astonishment at 'the bluest and most beautiful body of water I had ever seen.' He added: 'If I had been riding a blind mule, I firmly believe I would have ridden right over the edge to death and destruction.'"

And this from the web site http://oe.oregonexplorer.info/craterlake/history.html: "The lake was later rediscovered on August 1,1865 by two hunters working with road crews from Fort Klamath. Sergeant Orsen Sterns and several others came to see the now-legendary lake. Sterns was the first non-Native American to climb down into the caldera and reach the shore of Crater Lake. Captain F.B. Sprague soon joined him and suggested the name "Lake Majesty." In July of 1869, newspaper editor Jim Sutton and several others were the first to lower a canvas boat into the lake. Despite the many other names for this lake, Jim Sutton finally named it "Crater Lake" for the crater on top of Wizard Island in his article describing his exploration inside the lake."

"William Gladstone Steel is credited with the founding of Crater Lake National Park. He was fascinated with the enchanted beauty of Crater Lake when he first learned of it from a newspaper that was wrapped around his lunch when he was a school boy. His first glimpse of this exquisite beauty in 1885 inspired him to devote his life and fortune to set aside this scenery for all of us to enjoy. After 17 years of dedication and hard work, his dream came true when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill on May 22, 1902, to establish Crater Lake as the nation's sixth national park."

When we left Crater Lake, we rapidly descended from the lake's mountain crags and before we knew it we were back on the green rolling ranchlands of southern Oregon. At that point it was our intention to find a good campsite with good web reception and be settled in by cocktail hour. Such was not to be, as almost immediately we stumbled upon the historic site of Fort Klamath. Now we don't know anything about the history of southern Oregon, so we immediately swung into the parking lot and stopped.

I learned from the site https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/fort_klamath/#.WzGVEPZFyUk: "During the Civil War era, tens of thousands of people emigrated to the Pacific Northwest. While they avoided the war, they faced conflict with Native people whose homelands were being threatened. On the Applegate Trail, the new settlers met particular resistance from the Modocs, and the Oregon legislature called on the U.S. Army to build a fort in south-central Oregon. Brigadier General Benjamin Alvord, who was in command of the army's Department of Oregon (1862-1865), approved the creation of the post. In 1863, Captain William Kelly led C Troop, First Oregon Cavalry, into the Wood River Valley to build and occupy Fort Klamath."

"The fort was constructed in a particularly scenic spot. As an army surveyor wrote, 'There can be no question of the fitness of the place selected for the new fort if the only considerations are the health of the troops and the concern of their support.' Over a thousand acres were selected for the fort proper, with more than three thousand acres designated as a hay reserve to supply the cavalry’s mounts."

"One of the first buildings constructed was a sawmill, which was used to produce the material to build officer quarters, barracks, storehouses, hospital, a bake house, an arsenal, and stables. The buildings surrounded a parade ground with a 125-foot-high flagpole. By the time the post was abandoned in 1886, it had thirty-nine buildings, including a hotel and a theater."

"In 1864, the post was near the site of a treaty between the U.S. government and the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin Paiute Tribes. It was this treaty, signed in Council Grove, which created the Klamath Reservation (just south of the Fort) and denied the Modocs their traditional homeland along the Lost River, leading to the Modoc War in 1872-1873. Throughout the remainder of the 1860s, soldiers from Fort Klamath played a major role in patrolling wagon routes across southeastern Oregon, skirmishing regularly with Northern Paiute Indians in what was known as the Snake War."

"The fort usually had one or two troops of cavalry present. With the enlistment of the First Oregon Infantry into federal service, a company of infantry was added in 1865 to help build a military road across the Cascade Mountains, which created an easier route to the western valleys and stimulated more white movement into the area."

"With the end of the Civil War, the regular army returned to soldier in the Pacific Northwest, and the Oregon Volunteers were replaced by men of the First U.S. Cavalry Regiment. At the same time, the Modocs, unhappy on the Klamath Reservation, often slipped away to their homeland on Lost River. In 1869, Indian Agent Alfred B. Meacham persuaded them to return to the reservation, promising to help the tribe gain its own reservation on Lost River."

"The U.S. government did not keep Meacham’s promise, partly because a new Indian agent was appointed. Captain O.C. Knapp, who drank to excess and was insensitive to the Indians’ needs, was removed in relatively short order; but the damage had been done. The new Indian agent, Thomas Odeneal, was more sympathetic, but the Modocs still refused to live on the Klamath Reservation."

"When the Bureau of Indian Affairs called on the army to remove the Modocs from their homeland on Lost River and return them to the reservation, the troops at Fort Klamath took to the field. They established a temporary camp on Lost River to watch the Modocs, but then received the order to force the Indians to return to the Klamath Reservation. General R.S. Canby, commander of the Department of the Columbia, issued the order and added that “the force employed should be so large as to secure the result at once and beyond peradventure."

"In late November 1872, the fort’s commander, Major John “Uncle Johnny” Green, ordered only one troop of cavalry to join with a company of militia from Linkville (present-day Klamath Falls). Rather than overwhelm the Indians with the size and strength of the force, as Canby had intended, the outnumbered cavalry allowed the Indians to achieve tactical advantage."

"Fort Klamath was a supply depot during the subsequent war, which lasted until the spring of 1873 when the last of the Modocs surrendered. The leaders were held as prisoners and taken to Fort Klamath for trial. Of the six men tried for murder—General Canby had been killed during a peace council—four were found guilty. On October 3, 1873, Captain Jack and three other Modocs were hanged and buried near Fort Klamath."

"President Grover Cleveland ordered the fort closed. The post closed in 1887, the last of the soldiers left in 1890, and Fort Klamath became part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Eight acres of the original site are now a county park. There is a small museum on the grounds, along with the graves of the four Modocs who were executed in 1873."

Naturally, I had a terrific time photographing all the soldier hardware, uniforms, and weaponry. And Concetta like the story of Captain Jack and the Modoc war. We both had a great time wandering the museum and ground. But a glance at the clock revealed that it was 3:00 p.m. by the time we were set to leave and no firm campsite on the agenda. But as you can see by reading the beginning paragraphs of this blog, all's well that ends well. It may have been tense at times, but here we are in Klamath Falls at a nice, quiet (mostly) KOA, and tomorrow we'll be heading into California.

We hope that anyone reading this blog consider visiting Crater Lake as soon as you can. The beauty cannot easily be described or photographed, you just have to see it for yourself. And when you go, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.