Crater Lake National Park

[HistoricalExplorer]

I'm surprised there isn't already a thread on this topic. Most visitors to Crater Lake drive all or part of the road around the lake and continue on their journey, never knowing the many adventures they could have if they stayed awhile. I like to explore and write so I made a website. You can read about some of my Crater Lake adventures there. Have you explored Crater Lake? If so, what was your favorite adventure?

[WoodenWizard]

I've been there in the summer a couple of times. Its cool. Hot and mosquitoey. Its pretty scenery-wise. But it has a secret... The Winter- Dun-dun-dah!

My wife and two of my friends and I hiked around it in January of 2011. It was waaaaay better than the summer. No people, tons of snow, solitude, ridiculous views, isolation, and finally, NO PEOPLE!

Luckily, and totally randomly we caught three bluebird days in January. Even the Ranger's eyes lit up when we said we were gonna circumnavigate the lake. The only sketchy part was the 'avy zone' on the south side. We were able to just go through it though. The Ranger said that the risk was nonexistent and we could just go straight instead of taking the semi-gnarly detour.

There were drifts!

Mostly the snow was hard and we just ambled along on our snowshoes. We probably could have carried our snowshoes, but for some reason we never really tried. Honestly we couldn't decide on what would have been the best mode of transportation... Snowshoes, or slowshoes as Skurka says, ...are slow... and... tedious? You know... they are just cumbersome and slow. Xcountry skis might have been a lot better but there were a LOT of drifts big and small and they were crusty so it would not have been fun on skis. I guess? ...we didn't take skis, but we pondered it. Probably woulda been best off just walking with Microspikes or even Yaktrax. Crampons would have been overkill... but really may have been better than snowshoes.

A cat pooped here. Thats decidedly NOT LNT. He didn't even cover it...

I love that pic. It really tells a story.

We took three nights and it was an easy going pace but not too slow. Coulda gone faster but it was sooo nice out there we didn't want to. We walked in short sleeves a lot. It was colder on the north side because we were in the shade of the trees a lot. Also the west side was cold because the wind was blowing pretty good. ...Hence drifts.

We saw people on the last morning. I think we had only three miles from last camp to the car. People were only really around the lodge.

I said it got drifty!

EDIT: Oh Ha! I just went to your link and saw you stole my story! LOL Yesss! Winter is where its at!

Edited September 12, 2014 by WoodenWizard

[Jarrett.Morgan]

Looks like a wonderful place to visit. I'll have to check out the park and your website sometime.