There's no better way to gain an appreciation for an area than to visit. The next time you're in the Pacific Northwest, visit the Klamath and take your experiences home with you. It's a truly beautiful, unforgettable place. This page has a wealth of information and resources to help plan your visit.
How To Get There
Take I-5 towards the California/Oregon border. Exit onto Route 97, in either Weed, CA (direct connection) or Medford (via 140) or Ashland, Oregon (via 66). Take 97 to just over the California side of the border, then turn East on 161. Refer to the Google Map below for more on getting there and places to visit.
Getting around, and into the Tule Lake Refuge and the Lava Beds National Monument, is simple, and doesn't really require explanation. Better to just find out for yourself once you're there.
The map below will give you great pointers for different points of interest and exceptional areas within the refuges. Click on the link below the map to launch it in a new window full-screen.
As far as temperature, all seasons except Winter are delightful, with mild to warm temps, sparse precipitation, and beautiful skies. Click here for yearly averages for Tule Lake at weather.com. Mid-summer is hot and dry. Bird activity is lower, but there are chicks everywhere. Spring is time for tropical migrants, Autumn for waterfowl.
Winter days are brisk. The landscape is absolutely beautiful in Winter. Appreciable snow is rare. The "lakes" are mostly frozen in the Winter. Many of the birds leave, but hundreds of Bald Eagles and hawks arrive. Winter nights are cold, with temperatures sometimes in the single digits. Come prepared if you're camping.
Camping
Camping is not allowed in the National Wildlife Refuges. If you're visiting the Lower Klamath/Tule Lake area, the best options are (1) the Lava Beds campground, which requires you to pay but has facilities, or (2) the nearby Modoc National Forest, which can be easily accessed along Hill Rd., providing free campsites five minutes from the Tule Lake Refuge.
While camping you'll be treated to one of the quietest places in the world, due to the lack of trees (rustling vegetation), running water, nearby traffic, air traffic or crickets. It is absolutely, completely silent on many nights, with deep, bright stars.
Photography Tips
The auto-tours and photo blinds in the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake Refuges provide the best bird photo opportunities.
A professional hand-holdable super-telephoto lens (400mm f5.6) is ideal for photographing flying birds. Zoom lenses are not recommended.
Getting up on Sheepy Ridge is easy, with dozens of access points. The view is stunning, and the ridge itself is beautiful.
The boundary area between the Tule Lake NWR and Lava Beds NM is full of excellent photo opportunities of all kinds - grasses, mammals, landscapes, birds. It's a gorgeous area, especially first thing in the morning.
A couple of bed pillows are ideal for shooting from your inside your car, or from the roof. A tripod mount that clamps onto your car window is also helpful.
In general staying in your car will disturb birds less. However, driving at a fast pace, or starting or stopping near certain skittish species, will cause alot of disturbance. No more than 10mph is a good rule. 5mph or less is best. Getting out and walking, then getting into a position and staying there quietly, works pretty well. Using the photo blinds causes the least disturbance.
Ducks are extremely skittish. Drive fast and you'll disturb hundreds of ducks.
For sharp photographs of flying birds, try to use a shutter speed faster than 1/1,000th sec. If this puts you above 400 ISO, reconsider. If you can avoid it, never use a shutter speed slower than your focal length, unless it's for a reason.
Even when you have a lot of light on flying birds, stop down to from 100 to 200 ISO anyway. The sharpness gained by the stability at the faster shutter speed is more valuable than the reduction in grain-noise caused by keeping the ISO set to 100. I routinely stop down to 200, or even 400, enabling me to shoot handheld up to 1/3,200th. At this speed you have a much better chance of getting a sharp capture, and completely freezing the motion of the bird (if that's your goal).
Owls are among the least skittish of all species in the Klamath.
There are far more birds out of sight at any given time, hidden in grasses and reeds.
