Panoramic View of Crater Lake

Shortly after we arrived at the Crater Lake Lodge, I captured a series of photos to stitch together to create a panoramic view of the whole width of Crater Lake.  I knew that this would be a good place to start in explaining some landmarks as well as some of the places we visited.  

This panorama is a full 180° wide...  with the lodge on my left and Garfield Peak to my right...  we are on the south rim facing north, roughly...

I had an ultra-wide angle lens with me but even that very wide lens couldn't fit the whole crater in my field of view while at the lodge. While on some of the surrounding peaks, I was almost able to fit the whole crater in my field of view but still not quite.  The answer was to capture a series of images, left to right, and then stitch those images together once we arrived back home.  And, even though I shot this handheld, it came out well.

To get the full 180°, I needed to capture six images in portrait orientation.  I simply handheld the camera and rotated my body.  In hindsight, I should have stepped back a few steps to get the full, continuous stone wall in front of me without that break in the center of the frame.  I think my original thoughts were that I would only use the natural area beyond the stone wall.  Maybe I'll do that in another version.  For this purpose of highlighting points of interest, it turns out that this version works best.  

I overlaid a box over five separate points of interest that I will talk about in more detail, with photos, in subsequent blog entries.  I will list them below as an introduction here in this blog entry.

1.  At the left edge of the frame is the Crater Lake Lodge where we were staying.

2.  This is the Watchman Peak Trailhead Overlook which we visited on our second day at the lake.  There were some spectacular views from this lofty overlook.  

3.  This is Mount Thielsen which is a very distinctive mount peak off in the distance to the north that instantly reminded me of the Paramount logo seen at the beginning of movies.  

4.  Just to the right of Mount Thielsen is Timber Crater which is only a few miles beyond the northern rim of Crater Lake.  (I'm standing on the southern rim.)

5.  This is Garfield Peak looming over the lake and the lodge.  We would begin wandering toward this peak right after I shot this panoramic image.  Once we found ourselves on the trail, we figured we should continue.  We were concerned about how strenuous this trail is because it was rated "moderately strenuous" and my health is quite poor.  I have breathing issues at sea level so I knew I would have issues here especially if I was exerting myself to the "moderately strenuous" level.  We figured that if this trail proved to be too tough on my health, we could always turn around so we pressed on toward Garfield Peak which was towering over us.  I have to say that this was a harrowing climb and I did have significant problems breathing.