We are starting the trip out by joining some friends of ours on a weekend outing to Southern Oregon. The state park we are staying at is halfway between Medford OR and Crater Lake. One of our good friends from Portland has never visited Crater Lake during their time in the US, as they are English. They are going to use the State Park as a base for a trip into the National Park.
It was an uneventful drive until we got off of I-5 at Canyonville. As we were heading east out of Canyonville we began to see smoke from a forest fire and quite a bit of fire fighting equipment. We decided to press on using the logic that they would close the road if the fire was a threat. After a few miles we could actually see the flames and several helicopters attacking the fire. But as there was no one stopping us we pressed on. The smoke was very thick at times reducing visibility to less than half a mile.
Eventually we arrived at a smoky Stewart State Park. Several people were leaving, but we all decided to stay and see how it went.