Probably best to start with Part I here.

The Plan

I’m sure I could write page after page of this trip, but I really wanted to just capture some of the highlights that when brought together gave me this life changing experience.  Our drive from Crater Lake to Portland, then Black Butte included some extremely heavy smoke, but we didn’t have to detour around any road closures.

When I planned our trip I expected to camp next to Black Butte (about 1 mile away) and then we would drive up the dirt road to the small parking lot the day of the eclipse and have a short 2 mile hike to the top.  Unfortunately as we arrived the day before the eclipse (our 6th anniversary) things were looking hazy and we weren’t sure if we would have a good view of the eclipse with all the smoke.  Lady Kit’s parents were a few hours away in Madras where they said the sky was clear, but it was one of the bigger gathering points and we be sharing the experience with 10,000’s of people (maybe more).  I wanted our experience to be smaller a few to share it with (even if they’re strangers), but not too many.

Ultimately we decided to stick with our plan and we went to scope out our spot.  I’m glad we were feeling like being flexible, because as we approached the road up to Black Butte it was blocked off by a ranger for the duration of the eclipse.  The road was narrow, the parking lot small, and they didn’t want to any accidents with vehicles along the road due to the influx of eclipse chasers.  The ranger did point out a small parking lot at the base of the butte where it would be a 5-6 mile hike to the peak.

Adapt and Overcome

We checked out the parking lot and this is where we really flexed our adaptability.  Everything we planned for was car camping and day hiking.  At 4:00pm the day before the eclipse there were only two other open spots in the parking lot.  We weren’t sure if we went to our campsite and came back in the early morning there would be anywhere to park.

We figured, Hey! We’re on an adventure let’s hike up now and we’ll spend the night at the top (technically camping isn’t allowed at the top).  After some major reorganization of our gear we headed up with some snacks, two sleeping bags, a tarp, one thermarest, 5 litres of water, and all my camera gear.  Thankfully I like my “day packs” to be able to carry kitchen sinks so we had two essentially small backpacking packs to carry this gear.

Black Butte Milli Fire

We made it to the top at dusk, and rolled out our sleeping bags for a night under the stars.  Can you think of a more romantic way to spend an anniversary?  The sky was crystal clear and the stars bright and the wildfires burning off in the distance (looking a lot like Mt. Doom).