Crater Lake is the deepest and one of the most beautiful lakes in the United States. It is also both easy to visit and hard to experience. It is easy to visit because as long as the road is plowed you can get to see the lake itself often. It is hard to experience because the shore is approximately 900 feet below the rim drive and only one path leads down to the lake itself. Making matters worse is that the trail, as well as the boat rides that leave from it, are not open to visit for as long as you would expect and the boat tour was still closed in late June when we visited.
In fact, the Rim Drive itself wasn’t even fully open in late June and as a result some of the hikes we wanted to do in the park were not an option and we had to adapt our plans. Thankfully we were still able to drive much of the Rim Drive, complete hikes, get our Junior Ranger badges, and have the opportunity to explore some nearby National Forest area waterfall hikes where our dog could come with as well. In the end we have ideas for a return trip but no regrets with what we did in our three days within the Crater Lake area.
Day 1 – Rim Village, Discovery Point, and West Rim Drive
On our first day in Crater Lake we visited Rim Village and walked along the ridge to experience the lake from the many openings along this area. After completing this quick stop and using one of the few flush toilets along the drive, we headed counter-clockwise on the West Rim Drive and our first destination was to Discovery Point.
You can hike to Discovery Point from Rim Village, but we chose to drive and park at the large parking area and do the last portion of the hike where you climb a few switchbacks to get to the top of Discovery Point. The views from Discovery Point are amazing – especially of Wizard Island.
Leaving Discovery Point we stopped along each of the overlooks and wished that the Watchman Overlook was open for the season but unfortunately it was not. We then made our way around the lake until we hit what would be the end of the road for us – Skell Head. While we could have hiked or biked (if you have yours with, which we did not) on the closed East Rim Drive, we chose to head back to Rim Village where we visited the tiny “Visitor Center” and gift shop and were able to do our Junior Ranger books and earn our badges. With that we headed back to our rental home and enjoyed a quiet evening.
When planning our trip we gave ourselves an extra day in this area because we had some very long driving days to get out here from Minnesota and we also wanted to visit a few nearby National Monuments.
Day 2 – Tule Lake and Lava Beds National Monuments
The first was Tule Lake National Monument. This site was the location of an internment camp that housed individuals of Japanese descent during World War II. We have visited other sites like this including Manzanar in California and Minidoka in Idaho. Tule Lake was a large site but has since been largely demolished and is being rebuilt as a National Park site. At this time there is simply not much to see at this site, so while it was worth dropping in when we were in the area I wouldn’t go far out of the way to visit it until the new location is complete.
The second site we visited was the nearby Lava Beds National Monument and we were very impressed with this site and the unique experience it offers of being able to get a free permit at the Visitor Center and head into a series of Lava Tube caves. We have been in a lot of caves over the years including Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Cave, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Russell Cave, and many caves within other National Parks, but Lava Beds is unique in that we were able to enter caves on our own timetable and simply explore. I highly recommend Lava Beds National Monument if you are visiting Crater Lake as it was a highlight of our time here.
Day 3 – Umpqua National Forest Waterfalls
On our final day in Crater Lake we had checked social media and observed no changes to the East Rim Drive status and so we instead made our way to the Umpqua National Forest and took in a series of beautiful waterfalls just a bit north of the park. These trails were all dog friendly and our pup loved the opportunity to come with! We hiked to the stunning Toketee Falls (0.9-mile out-and-back) and Watson Falls (0.8-mile loop trail), as well as the very accessible Whitehorse and Clearwater Falls.
If your travels allow, I would add these to your agenda as the Umpqua National Forest itself was beautiful and we love exploring waterfalls just about as much as we love trying to find moose in the wild. After we finished our last hike we headed back into Crater Lake National Park from the north and again found the East Rim Drive closed and as a result made our way back along the West Rim and stopped into a few overlooks to again admire the beautiful blue of the lake.
What we missed
So, with all we did, and were not able to do, what is on our list of must do’s next time we get to Crater Lake? Below is a list of some hikes we really wish we could have experienced in no particular order:
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Looks like you guys had a lot of fun – thank you for sharing!