I woke up to the sound of my cell phone alarm at 0730 in the morning. It was cold outside but inside the sleeping bag, it was heavenly cozy. My tent is a little bit small for two people, but dipu and slept quite comfortably. I didnt want to get up so early and dipu was not showing any sign of life, I decided to in to sleep again.
Finally we woke up at 0830 and got ready. Had a quick breakfast consisting of hot tea, cookies, yogurt and cereal bars. After that, we began our day. After some debate and discussion about what to do first, we decided that we would hike to the top of Garfield Peak. It was a great hike. Relatively short: 1.7 miles with around 1000 feet elevation gain. It was an interesting trail with wonderful views of the lake and some nice volcanic rock formations. We took quite a lot of pictures on the way. We had a lunch of sandwich, apple, and banana on the top of the peak. While coming back down, I developed a strange pain in my right knee which made any kind of walking difficult for me for the rest of the day. That was bad.
It was bright and sunny so far but now the sky was gradually becoming cloudy and temperature started falling. After that we decided to hike up to the Watchman’s Point. That was a rather short and steep road: about 800 feet in a quarter of a mile. It was real simple but my right knee was hurting so badly that even this small walk was difficult for me. But the view was rewarding from the top and we had a nice photo session also and I also had the chance to peek into a fire lookout station. According to our plan, the next stop was Cleetwoot Cove. This is the place where you hike down to the lake and hop on to the boat tour of the lake. At this point we realized our biggest mistake of the day. By the time we reached there, all the tickets have been sold out for the day. So, a tip for all of you who want to in there: if you want to take the boat ride, get your ticket early in the morning. Since the boat ride was ruled out, the motivation to hike down to the lake kind of died. Also the pain in the right knee having intensified considerably, I was not in the mood of hiking down myself. So we all decided to visit all the points of interests and overlook points around the rim. We did that, took a lot of snaps, and enjoyed the view and quiet. The last stop for the day was the Pinnacle Overlook. Pinnacles are interesting natural chimneys which are formed when got gases from solidifying lava try to escape upward. After that, we came back to the camp. It was cold and damp. There was a paid shower in a nearby inn and paid 75 cents for 4 minutes of hot shower. It was nice after a tiring day. There was a small open air amphi theater nearby and there was a show by a ranger about the origin, history and interesting facts about crater lake. It was pretty good. As Matteo was keen on having a nice dinner, we had made a dinner reservation at a fancy lodge overlooking the lake. The dinner menu was ridiculously expensive and I reluctantly spent 30 bucks for a delicious salmon dinner.
We came back to the camp at 1100 at night and lit a nice campfire and finished the day with a decent bottle of wine and a bunch of marshmallows.

My cell phone is out of network. I will post it when I have a chance. This photo shows a view of the lake from Garfield Peak.

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