2022 Parks Road Trip Diary: Days 56-59

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the USA. It’s what you get when a volcano explodes and leaves a huge crater behind in a very snowy place. All of its water is provided directly by precipitation, unlike most lakes, which are fed by rivers. While there’s not a ton to do in the park, it’s really quite a sight to behold.

Day 56: Crater Lake is Far. What’s in Between?

We just left Vancouver. On this long road trip through western North America, it was finally time to start making our way back down south. As we headed back towards Texas, we’d plan to hit national parks that were closer to the west coast. In this order, the next one would be Crater Lake National Park.

But… from Vancouver, that’s a ten hour drive. And that’s not including time for traffic; after all, this was a Monday morning and we’d be passing through two major metro areas plus a border crossing.

So, we needed to choose an intermediate spot to settle for the night. A great option was the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, which was around the halfway point. It not only had nearby campgrounds run by the US forest service, but also was itself an attraction worth visiting! More on that in a bit.

back in the USA (also, let's play "where's mt rainier")

I am astounded at how long the line of cars was at the border crossing when we got there. I won’t bore you with the details of what we went through, especially because I couldn’t get pics of how ridiculous it was. But I’ll just say that without NEXUS / Global Entry, we would have probably not even made it to the Columbia River Gorge before midnight.

watching planes land at PDX at sunset as we pass through Portland

We stopped near Portland at a Thai restaurant (yet again; it’s my fav cuisine) called Hat Yai, and it was a great choice for a late dinner. With full bellies, we drove the 30 more minutes to our campground near the Columbia River gorge, set up camp in the dark, and went to sleep. Surprisingly, big driving days are more tiring than big hiking days.

Day 57: Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area

Multnomah Falls

The remainder of the drive to Crater Lake was about 5 more hours. That left us time to do a morning hike in the Columbia River area. Plus, Crater Lake seemed like a single-day kind of park, and we were dedicating tomorrow to exploring it, so there was no need to rush there to try to see it today.

One popular attraction in this area is Multnomah Falls, a grand waterfall that also has some accompanying hiking trails, the main one being Multnomah Falls Trail (2.6 mi, 800 ft elev gain). You don’t need to do the hike to see the waterfall from below, which I guess is why it’s so popular.

the great multnomah falls

But of course the hike is worth doing.

this is the top of that same waterfall!
the view across the columbia river, seeing washington state from oregon!

There are other trails, and even other scenic waterfalls in the area. We had to somewhat cut our time here short, limiting it to the morning so we could arrive at Crater Lake well before dark.

exploring some other parts of the multnomah falls hiking trails
because the one big waterfall wasn't enough

In retrospect, it would have been worth it to spend a full day or two here, and also check out the hiking around the nearby Mount Hood. But in our planning, we mostly ignored places that weren’t national parks. Oh well, maybe another summer.

Onto Crater Lake! The drive was uneventful. The campsite we arrived at (Union Creek campground) was another nice one that was well secluded, a feeling that was bolstered by its big surrounding trees. This campground is outside the park, so we didn’t get to witness the lake just yet.

finally the 10 hours of driving are behind us

We stayed up late enough to see the stars this night. The sky was a bit obscured by the tall trees, but we could still see part of the dimly lit milky way.

Day 58: Circumnavigating Crater Lake

The map of Crater Lake National Park is basically: there’s the lake, and there’s a 33-mile road that loops around it, called the rim drive. There are hikes at a few different stops around the rim drive, all of which essentially serve the purpose of giving you a nice view of the lake.

To make a full day, we found the three best viewpoints around the rim and hiked to all of them, driving the full rim road along the way. The three hikes were:

Describing this park as a bunch of lake vistas is admittedly a bit of a simplification. For example, Crater Peak seemed cool and is far from the rim. Cleetwood Cove descends to the lake, plus from there you can (expensively?) boat over to Wizard Island. Though I’m not sure I’d spend multiple days here just to hit all of it.

a volcano caldera filled with fresh water
garfield peak ✅
close-up of "the phantom ship"
mount scott was a bit farther away from the lake, but we couldn't resist hiking the highest point in the park
watchman peak's main draw is its good view of wizard island, the volcano within a volcano

We finished our three lake-vista-seeking hikes just as a thunderstorm began to roll in. We ran down the last third of our last hike with the fear that skies could open up at any second.

when you can see where it's raining, there's a good chance you're next

The rain did catch up with us, but only after we were back in the car. Fortunately, it did not chase us back to our campground, and we had a peaceful evening there.

Tomorrow: off to Lassen Volcanic NP in northern California. Bye Oregon!

post originally written 9/24, backdated to match reality