Lava Lake emerges from the ice after long winter

At Lava Lake, which sits just south of Mt. Bachelor, it doesn’t really look like winter has ended.

There was a good foot of snow on the ground Friday — but that’s actually two feet less than there was on Thursday. This week’s brief heat wave melted most of it, and also thawed the lake.

“Ice went off a day,- two days ago,” Lava Lake Resort owner Joie Frazee said Friday evening “And it only took two days from completely frozen to completely thawed.”

But Mother Nature didn’t do all the work. There’s a lot that goes into preparing the resort for the summer.

“We’re a lot higher in elevation up here, so we’ve got to work a lot harder to get access to things and get enough room,” Frazee said. “You know, you can get plowed in, but at the same time, you have to make enough room for people to park — to get here, turn around and be able to park boat trailers.”

But overall, the winter was kind to the resort and its owner.

“Last year, we had so many trees down due to the ‘bend-overs,’ where it can’t carry the snow load and it bends the trees down,” he said. “I probably took 400 out of my park, and this year I had two.”

The boat ramp was made available Friday. So this weekend, you can be the first one out at Lava Lake this year to catch some fish — and a little taste of summer.