Getting the perfect photo often times requires tons of preplanning. Other times you get delightfully unlucky and still appreciate the results. This is how I captured "The Money Shot" as I have dubbed this image, and how much it cost to get it.
Let's start this story back when I was researching what to do on my upcoming vacation. Aside from requesting a few days off from my day job, I really hadn't put much thought into the exact plans of my impending momentary freedom from the daily grind. With only a week until it was "party time", I found myself laying in bed clicking through various websites for national and state parks. I'm not sure if I couldn't sleep because I had not yet outlined an itinerary, or because I was playing on my phone in bed.
It was at this point that I discovered that Crater Lake National Park closes the road around the lake on November 1st. This meant I could haul ass from Bellingham, Washington down to Southern Oregon and make it just in time. The weather also appeared to be cooperating, as the forecast was calling for blue bird skies with temperatures in the upper 40's for the next week. After outlining my ideas with my girlfriend/co-pilot/hiking partner, we made it official!
We made it to the National Park and it only took a tank and a half of gas, two coffees, two red bulls, and 10 hours! The drive itself should have been nearly 2 hours shorter, but for anyone who has ever driven through Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon (or any big city), you can imagine the agony of crawling at 3.7 miles an hour in bumper to bumper traffic.
For anyone who has not seen or visited, it is absolutely awe inspiring.
Next, we headed further up and around Rim Road to where the money shot was "born". The appropriately named drive, which in summer months while open, leads visitors around a complete circle of the massive lake. The crater and lake were formed when Mount Mazama, a strato-volcano, erupted around 7700 years ago. The lake is a whopping 1949 feet deep, making it the deepest lake in the United States, and ninth in the world.
Being in complete awe, as I usually am by the beauty of mountain landscapes, I decided to stop in the middle of Rim Road to quickly take a picture... so I turn the hazard lights on, throw my camper van in park, snag my camera and quickly hop out to fire off a few images of the cascading landscape to the west. A quick review of a couple of the pictures and I was already pumped! The layers of hills, ridges, and trees in the distance, blended with the foggy sunset which gave the image the effect of being painted.
As I hopped back in the van, a national park ranger passes by. Maybe you can see where this is going....
After traveling up the road further and pulling into a parking area, the ranger pulls in behind my vehicle and proceeds to issue a citation for stopping in the middle of the road. 🤦♂️
Tack on the $80 traffic ticket from a park ranger, coffees, red bulls, food, filling the tank up numerous times, and camping fees and the cost really start to add up. However, I think the results are worth it! Although, I probably won't be stopping in the middle of the road for a picture again...
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