First Visit To Crater Lake National Park
During the first week of October 2018, my girlfriend Shantelle and I made the long trek from Stanley Idaho to visit Crater Lake National Park for the first time. Getting there wasn’t a straight shot on a major highway but rather a decent down windy mountain roads and then a drive through Oregon’s southeastern countryside. A flat and farm-filled countryside with small country towns scattered across the roadways.
Read on to learn about Crater Lake National park.
You can also watch the video of our visit to Crater Lake at the end of this page.
Getting To Crater Lake
For many hours leading up to the north entrance of Crater Lake is relatively flat and covered in tall red pine trees. As we start to get closer to the park I check Google Maps to see if there are any gas stations and there only seems to be one a couple miles north of the entrance to the park. At a fork in the road is the only entrance into the north side of the park. Left goes to the Crater and right goes to a large lake in the forest, Diamond Lake. That’s where the only gas station is in the area so that’s where we go to fill up. We arrive at a fishing dock surrounded by cabins and a campground with boats for rent. We pull in to find the pump. It seems to be hidden. We park and let the poodle out to run around, sniff, and mark the new place.
A crew of forest service firefighters pull in and park next to us. We’re the only people there. It’s far past the season for vacations on the lake. A crew of worn out firefighters jump out and walk into an office behind the shop. The trucks are of the large off-road fire fighting kind. The crew comes back out shortly and jumps into the trucks. Kubo the poodle runs past a few of the crew and jumps back into the van. As one of the firefights walks back we pass each other and give a nod. They turn over the large diesel engines and roll out as quickly as they came in. I guess there are some fires that need their attention.
I go around the back of a boat shop that’s built on the dock on the side of the large lake. Someone walks out and I ask where the gas pump is. She answered, “This pump is only for boats.” (It was too far off the road and too much on the dock). “There is a pump down the road about a mile.” Further away from the Crater Lake junction. Since we have no choice and we already made it out this far, we go on to the next pump. I guess this area is more remote then I thought. The pump is as old as the last century. There aren’t any prices listed on the pump and I’m skeptical it will even work. I go into the store and an older local looking fellow is behind a counter.
“Can I fill up here?” I ask. “Yeah, prices are a little higher here. It’s $4.10 a gallon so for 5 gallons that’d be about $20.50. “Alright,” I say. The man goes out to the pump and I follow behind. He grabs the pump ready to start. I’m still not used to people pumping my gas for me. Oregon as a state is the only place that has people pump gas for you. “How much do you want?” “Oh, about $30 worth.” “Alright.” After he is done filling we go inside to pay. He manually types in the price per gallon and uses a combination of a calculator and a cash register. I pay with a card and saddle up in the van.
Finally… we get going and drive back to the fork. We turn left and then right to head south towards Crater Lake.
We drove up to the park entrance and the fee box was closed. It was only 5:30 or so. As we would soon find out, all the park entrances were closed as were the campgrounds and visitor centers. The campgrounds in Crater Lake closed a week earlier in the last week of September, but we didn’t know that.
From atop the ridge there is almost immediately a view of the crater and lake. We stop at an overview of the lake to take it the views. It’s later in the day and the sunlight has already dipped below the crater ridgeline leaving the lake shaded. There are large clouds drooping above the lake and barely touching the top of the craters ridge on the opposite side of us. Since the park entrance was closed the only map we had was the Google map on my phone from the GPS. The only road in the park is the one that curves around the entire top of the crater’s ridgeline with entrances coming in from the north and south.
Exploring The Park
We continue to drive around the ridgeline heading to the south end for a campground or visitor center to get information and a map. We didn’t know they were all closed yet. We make it up to the lodge and past a closed visitor center. We go in to get information. It’s an old large lodge and hotel with what seems like only retired people staying there. The lodge seems to be full though. We barely found a small spot to park and there are people moving around the grounds and unloading cars of luggage. I take a map from a pile by a park information post which we use as our guide to find trails, campgrounds, and the layout of the park. There is a small tribute to the park’s history with pictures and text telling stories of the first documented visitors.
At this point, we are on the south side of the ridge where the clouds were now covering the ridge. Some light raindrops from the clouds and a cold breeze settle in. We leave and head to the closest campground. Consistent rain starts to hit our windshield while we curve around corners on the road. After passing the campgrounds closed gate, I see there is one further down the road so we head to that one. It’s about a 15-minute drive down a straight stretch of road.
The sunlight is really low now. The drive to the campground heads south away from the park on a ridge covered with fog and tall pine trees.
We get to another campground with gates holding us at bay. Closed for the season. It looks like all of the camps are closed. It’s late and we need a place to stay that’s not in the way of rangers patrol or people visiting the park. I find a road that leads to a hike where some volcanic activity made some large standing rock pillars. We figure this time of year there won’t be people there and we just need a place to park our van. It’s dark now and we start to head there. It’s a 15-minute drive down a straight road that ends at the trailhead.
Once there, we find it’s empty. We go for a short walk down the trail with the poodle to see what the area is like. There is barely enough light to walk without a light. A flat well walked trail leads us on the side of a cliff ridge where volcanic pillars shoot up from lower in the gulch on the left.
We are camping in a van that has a bed in it along with the trip’s belongings and gear. We park and set up our table outside to start cooking our dinner. We eat a trip regular of veggie taco salad with fresh avocado and coffee. We only have few beers with us and those get consumed too.
No heavy rain ever drops during the night but there was a little mist like drizzle that graced us with a visit when we were cooking. We warm up the van with a tent heater and get ready for a long and sound rest.
It never got too cold and I doubt the temperature ever dipped below 45 or 50 degrees. Warmer than it usually is this time of year. According to the history room at the lodge, it can start snowing this time of year and the park sees quite a lot of snow in the winter. The ecosystem in this small park seems to be very unique and it’s hard to label it one kind of way. The north end below the park is drier and the forests are a skinny and red pine with not much moss on them. The forest on the south end in the park and further down has had the help of much more moisture to make the trees larger and covered with green beard-like hair hanging from every limb.
A New Day At Crater Lake
It’s morning now and we make breakfast, scrambled eggs cheese and coffee. We head back up the road to explore the park. On the way, we stop at a trailhead to walk through the forest. The forest on the south side is an old growth northwestern forest with a lot of moisture covering tall evergreens. Moss hangs from the limbs and covers the bark. Ferns are scattered across a soft ground made with years of fallen tree debris. We continue around the main ridge road this time heading east. We pass many overlooks that offer great views of the lake, cliffs, and fog covered trees. There is a low and big cloud moving quickly across the mountainous ridge with a peak of sunlight gazing on the cloud. It’s pretty spectacular. This place seems so big yet so small. The lake is high enough that the ridge isn’t’ quite like a big mountain but it has mountain peak qualities with rocky cliffs and sharp angels. Imagine you hike to a high alpine lake but instead of the mountain surrounding the, usually small lake, there is a huge lake with small a mountain surrounding the whole thing in a circle. Relatively even elevation all the way around.
We keep driving around the crater to the only hike that will lead you to the lake shores. We get there, park, say goodbye to Kubo after letting him out to stretch, and start down to the water. The hike is 1.1 miles down with 700 feet of elevation drop. It goes fairly quickly and we’re so excited we sprint and jog down the trail. We pass two other parties of people and I try to stop sometimes to get pictures. On this hike through all my batteries are dead and I switch between 2 to try and get a few pictures. The exercise of being very selective with my camera time sets into my mind and causes a little anxiety but not of the bad nature. It’s more like, “damn it I want to get this picture and I can’t.” But I don’t let it ruin the experience of course. I wouldn’t’ let that happen. This is just a time to practice living in the moment and enjoying the wonderfully unique lower views of Crater Lake.
On the hike down to the shore, I remember back to something that some strangers told us when we were sharing a hot spring in Stanley Idaho. They told us about a tree trunk that is floating vertically around the lake. Like free floating and it has been there for years. I stop on the trail where there is a good and leveler view of the lake. I see a small spec in the lake. It’s the only thing in the lake. For those who don’t know, you won’t find boats or canoes or anything in the lake. The rangers can take people out on a boat to the island upon request but other than that there is no water recreation or anything else moving in the lake. This spec must be the floating log we heard about. I point it out to Shantelle.
Once we get to the shore the whole perspective changes. We can see cliffs from the bottom looking up. Clouds moving across them with splashes of light. And a big blue lake to meet the end of the cliffs.
The entire lake is filled with precipitation collected over thousands of years. There is no natural inlet or outlet. It’s just a huge bowl that has created its own contained ecosystem and collected rain and snow over the millennia. Crater Lake was created by a volcano that erupted and left a huge hole in the ground. There is a small elevation gain from the valley floor outside the crater to the ridge but a huge depth on the inside. It’s the deepest lake in North America with a max depth of 1,949 feet. It’s a deep blue and clear lake.
I like to imagine it’s a perfect place for a secret government base or scientific lab that’s hundreds of feet underwater. I see the floating spec again and it’s in a different location now. It must be the floating log. The bottom must be a trunk that weighs it down to keep it upright like that. That floating spec is probably the top of the secret underwater base that moves around the lake. Or it’s just a weird phenomenon. It must never reach the shores or if it does it doesn’t get stuck on rocks. It keeps moving.
There is a park ranger at the end of the trail of rocks on the shore. There isn’t any sand. The whole coast is rocks and boulders. There is a small beach of small rocks that touches the water but other than that the whole area is big boulders on top of each other. Like the kind, you’ll find on top of a mountain peak at 10,000 feet or more.
I get some pictures and take in all the views. There are more people at the end of the trail. We go over to a spot that isn’t occupied. I want to soak my feet in the pure water, wash my face, and drink it. If it wasn’t so damn cold I would more seriously consider swimming in the deep blue lake. The water is so cold and I only have one pair of clothes. I really want to but I fear I might get hypothermia if I do. Luckily swimming is permitted. I’ll have to come back in July and bring a towel.
The lake has a reverence to it. The slow-moving low cloud cover, the blue color of the water, the soft waves, and the fact that there isn’t anything floating on the water other than a tree trunk makes the water seem respected and peaceful. If not the only lake then it’s definitely one of the most protected, pristine, and untampered lakes in the US. It’s the only body of water I’ve visited that doesn’t have some human presence in it or on it. Man, I want to swim in there. We move over to the beach where the small rocks are and the boulders aren’t. I walk on top of some rocks that are half in the water. I lean over and scoop water into my mouth. It tastes exactly how I would expect it. Like nothing. No minerals, no particles, just H2o. I also wish I brought my large water jug to fill up with the spiritual waters of clean and clear. People pay money for some water that comes out of rocks or springs. This water is over a thousand years old and has been a part of the natural water cycle of evaporation and precipitation. Cleansed by the power of the sun and clouds that store it only to return it to a big rocky bowl. And I mean a big bowl. The ranger said, “you can drink the water at your own risk. I drink it all the time. I just filled up my bottle for the day.”
After a good amount of time enjoying the shoreline of the ancient lake, we head back up the trail. On the way up I stop at a similar view to look for the floating tree log. I see it and it’s moved quite a bit from the last spot. Proof of something. A floating log alone and forever drifting where the currents sway it. Or, the top of an underwater base. You can decide which.
We get back to the van and let out the poodle for a moment. We eat a snack of pickled beets and apples and drive back around the road from which we came. We stop at an overview to make ramen noodles for lunch and to paint the view with watercolors. It would have been a perfect place to paint but the wind on this part of the ridge was very strong. The van doors had trouble staying open and after a while of fighting the wind and sharing painting supplies, we decide to pack up and drive off. We’re heading to the Oregon coast this evening. We have 4 hours to go and enough light to make it right as the sun goes down.
On the way out of the south end of the park, we stop on a nice long hill so I can take my small skateboard for a ride. The road cuts through tall trees and this is a perfect spot to enjoy carving switchbacks down a hill.
We were only in the park for a full day and a half and tried to gett the most out of our time there. Compaired to other parks, Crater Lake is very small and doesn’t have as much to explore. Ther are a lot more ridgeline trails with views of the lake that we didn’t get to hike but we got to see the whole park and the shores of the lake in one day.
We get down to the valley below and find a gas pump in an obscure area. No gas station. Just a pump. There is spring water too and we need to fill all our water containers. It should taste good as spring water usually does but it’s not very satisfying.
We head off to the coast and drive on country roads through forests and lakes. We only drive on a major highway for about 10 miles. The whole drive was right through the heart of southern Oregon. It was one of the best road trip drives I’ve experienced. Fall colors, small towns, and trees on both sides the whole time.
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Thanks for reading.
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