Crater Lake National Park

Oh my gosh, where do we begin?! We finally made it to Oregon! After two and a half days of 12-14 hour drives, we made across 4 states to the west coast! The first day, Aaron was a rock star and hauled us over 750 miles to middle of nowhere Wyoming. The second full day of travel got us to Boise, Idaho. And then we had a short half day drive to get to our final destination, Crater Lake National Park.

Trip Details:

Where: Crater Lake National Park, OR

Campsite: Diamond Lake RV Park, site W-6

Length: 2 days

Itinerary:

Day 1: Diamond Lake/Crater Lake NP

Day 2: Crater Lake NP

Charlotte’s Highlights: Swimming in a volcano/Crater Lake!!

Paige’s Highlights: Eating lunch at Crater Lake and hiking around the lake

Adult’s Highlights: Watching the sunset and stargazing in Crater Lake NP, and a nap

What a fantastic way to start this trip! Crater Lake was just a breathtaking place. However, the word “breathtaking” doesn’t seem to do this national park justice. Think of the color blue, then make it ten times more vibrant and beautiful and then maybe it’ll be the blue of this lake.

The first half day was filled with an afternoon cocktail to celebrate our safe journey over here, then followed by a game of Guesstures, dinner and then a visit over to Diamond Lake. The girls had a good time using their new snorkeling gear and said the water was chilly but it didn’t seem to bother them!

After that, we drove into Crater Lake NP to watch the sunset and unfortunately, these pictures will not do it justice. My friend, Kassie, said we should upgrade our phones before this trip - and now we’re wishing we had! Haha! We had packed some cookies to enjoy some late-night stargazing at this dark-sky national park. Some national parks are considered dark-sky parks, since the quality of the starry night and distance from a major city won’t affect the view! We were able to see a ton of stars and the Milky Way. Again, no photos were able to capture this but it was a highlight for sure.

The second day was dedicated to Crater Lake NP. After getting our coffee and packing our lunches, we set off for a full day. The morning we spent taking in this views of Crater Lake. Deep, deep blue water! The bluest we’ve ever seen. We took so many photos because every 5 steps we declared that this was the best view… Haha. We dropped by the visitors center for the girl’s junior ranger workbooks and went on our way to explore!

We learned that Crater Lake is one of the deepest lakes in the world, and the deepest in the US. Crater Lake is almost 2,000 feet deep and spans a little more than 5 miles in diameter. The lake was created after Mount Mazama collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption. And the lake was created from rain and melted snow over the years. There are actually 4 mini-volcanoes inside Crater Lake. One is an actually island called Wizard Island - and you can somewhat see the top of the volcano!

We went on 2 hikes, one was an easy one around part of the rim called Discovery Point Trail and provided some excellent postcard quality views.

Then we put our brave faces on to take a more strenuous hike down the Cleetwood Cove Trail which included a 700 foot drop in elevation. As expected, the hike down the side of the crater was much easier than the hike back up! But what a payoff! Charlotte was hesitant to hike this path but said it was totally worth it! We decided we all would put our feet in the volcano lake! It was the coldest water I’ve ever felt…. Needless to say, I didn’t last long. But everyone else rocked it! The cold didn’t seem to bother them at all. We decided to do a foot in water challenge and Charlotte lasted almost 3 minutes… however she couldn’t feel her feet for a little bit. Haha!

Thanks for coming on our adventure! Until next time….

~ Mary