Crater Lake National Park

We arrived at the park pretty late on Friday, but we were greeted by a wonderful sunset over the mountains. After a few stops to soak in the pink and orange sky, we got our campsite assignment and slept in the truck because we didn’t want to set up the tent in the dark.

The next morning started with “surprise egg”, as AC calls it, for breakfast. It’s a piece of bread (in our case, gluten free bread that our host baked just for me) with a hole cut out of the middle and an egg fried in that hole. We put together a game plan for the day–two hikes on the east side and one on the west with a few scenic pull-offs along the way–and headed to the Visitor Center to get the lay of the land.

On our way to the Visitor Center, we noticed a lot of bicycles and the entrance to East Rim Road was closed. That’s when we realized there was a cycling event happening that day! We asked someone at the Visitor Center if any of the East Rim Road was open…it was fully closed.

It was about this time that we realized we are really good at planning trips to National Parks when half of the park is closed. Case-in-point:

• In North Cascades, all of the hikes we had planned were closed due to fire danger.
• The back half of the main road through Mt. Rainier was closed for construction. There was a detour, but since we were there for such a short time, we didn’t get to check out the Sunrise area of the park.
• And now, the east side of Crater Lake was closed on Saturday for a cycling event.

We had planned on seeing everything and heading back to our farm stay on Saturday–it’s a small enough park that we could easily done that had Ride the Rim not been in full swing. Luckily, our plans were flexible so we extended our stay to Sunday so we could see the rest of the park.

Since we were staying an extra night, we went back to our campsite to set up the tent and roast some weenies for lunch. Next, we headed out of the park to explore some waterfalls in a nearby area.

We visited Prospect State Scenic Viewpoint for three great waterfalls and “Avenue of Giant Boulders.” The waterfalls were all very different: one was tall and flowing heavily, the second was tall, but much more dainty, the third was short and wide and very peaceful. The Avenue of Giant Boulders was aptly-named as the water rushed over huge rocks that were spit out when Mt. Mazama blew. It was a lovely detour!

We went to church that night, then came back for dinner (weenies again–since we didn’t plan for a two- night stay, we didn’t have our cooler so we needed to eat the weenies before they went bad). Then we showered and tucked into our three layers of blankets for the night.

On Sunday, we woke up, ate breakfast, packed up camp, and headed for the now-open east side of the park. We took a short hike to see some pinnacles that were formed by lava back in the day when Mount Mazama was an active volcano. We also made a pit stop at Phantom Ship Overlook. Phantom Ship is a rock formation in the middle of the lake that looks ship-like. It’s called “phantom” because it drifts in and out of visibility depending on how the fog settles on the lake. Today, there was no fog so we got a clear shot of the “ship.”

We made a few photo stops on the way to our final hike: Cleetwood Cove Trail. This is the only trail that accesses the lake and they make you work for that access! We made our way down 9 steep switchbacks (always those stinkin’ switchbacks) to the lake. We can both say that we’ve touched Crater Lake, and it was cold, but very clear and nice shades of blue, like the Caribbean.

The way out was torture. It was steep and there was no break in the climb. Just straight up for 29 mins–they say it’s the equivalent of climbing 65 flights of stairs. But we did it!

Until next time,

Charli