One Day at Crater Lake

A few weeks ago boyfriend and I had a common weekend (or, rather, he took a Sunday off work and I took a Monday off work so that we could have a few days together before the end of the summer).  He was doing the Bridge Pedal with his parents in the morning, but we decided to leave that afternoon and drive five hours to Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States and ninth deepest in the world.  The lake was formed when a super volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted hundreds of years ago, forming a huge crater at a high altitude (around 8,000 feet).  The crater was then filled with rainwater.

On the drive down we tried to stop at the Lava River Caves, a local sight just outside Bend, Oregon.  But, because of my luck, we missed the open hours by twenty minutes, a feat we also managed to do on the way home.

We continued on toward the lake, and learned upon reaching the entrance to the park that all the campsites within the park were taken.  We turned around and drove back toward Diamond Lake, where we found space in a fire camp, a campground used by firefighters who were fighting a nearby forest fire.  Try not to feel guilty roasting smores over a fire when all those guys come back late at night.  You can’t.  You feel guilty.  It’s okay, just eat another smore, it’ll make everything better.

We woke up early on Monday morning and packed up the campsite, then drove straight to Crater Lake.  We started at the top and went all the way around the lake, stopping at every sight we could.  The first thing you hit from the north is the Pumice Desert, a large expanse of pumice stone without many plants or wildlife.  The pumice is all a beautiful shade of orange, with an occasionally scrubby bush.

Continuing on, there is a hike called the Watchmen.  The hike was only a mile each way, but it was a little bit rough because of the altitude.  The top of the hike is around 8900 feet.  We hiked as best we could, but we had to take a lot of breaks because the thinning air was making it hard to breathe.  When we reached the top, however, the entire lake was down below us, spread out beautifully.  

The smoke from the wildfire made the morning air a bit hazy, but it cleared up as time passed.  We hiked back down to the car and drove to Rim Village, hoping to find a good map at the information center.  However each “information center” was actually just a little shop.

From there we headed down to Mazama Village, the largest campground inside the park, to get some gas.  The pump was a bit old-timey and looked like it was from the 1950s.  We continued along East Rim Drive and stopped at Vidae Falls, a small, pretty waterfall right at the edge of the main road around the lake.  

Then we kept going and stopped at Sun Notch, which had multiple spots to view the lake through the trees around the edge of the rim.  We could see where the rock and water met, and could witness the rock changing in color from orange to yellow to turquoise to blue under the water.  

A few of the spots had a better view of the Phantom Shipwreck than the Phantom Shipwreck overlook.  

That was our next stop after Sun Notch, but you could skip the overlook and take your pictures of the Phatom Shipwreck (a rock formation that looks like an old ship coming in to dock at the edge of the lake) from Sun Notch.

The best stops, in my opinion, were yet to come.  The next stop, the Pinnacles, were located at the southeast corner of the park.  The cliffs there are all formed of sandstone, and the Pinnacles are a rock formation created by wind erosion.  The rocks stick up from the side of the cliffs.  

They were pretty interesting and cool, considering that they were essentially just rocks. 

My favorite spot in all of Crater Lake was Plaikni Falls.  We had to walk along a flat path around half a mile before we reached a waterfall cascading over the edge of the grey rock cliff that was coating in moss, making its way over a small rock and driftwood coated creek dappled with wildflowers.  


It looked like it was straight out of Middle Earth, and I say this being in NO WAY a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  We put our hands into the stream just to find that the water was freezing cold, predictably.  It was a beautiful waterfall, small, but gorgeous.

The last two stops were the Pumice castle, a formation of pumice jutting out the side of the hill, forming an orange castle-like rock structure.  

After we snapped a few pictures we drove a little further to the base of Mount Scott, where we stopped at a little picnic spot to eat lunch.  The Mount Scott hike was too strenuous a climb for the amount of time and energy we had left.  On the way out of the park we passed Cleetwood Cove, the only spot along the lake where you can get down to the edge of the water.  

Again, the hike was a little beyond our abilities at that moment.  Besides, it was a little bit too cold of a day to want to go swimming in a freezing mountain lake.  Ideally, we would have spent a few days camping there and seen more of the sights and done a few more hikes.  Maybe another time.  Although we did choose a good time to go, as a few days later more wildfires had broken out and a campfire ban went into place.

All in all, Crater Lake was beautiful.  I would highly recommend going, particularly if you have enough time to camp out and hike multiple trails.  It’s one of the best spots I’ve seen in Oregon.