TulaneLSU's guide to and Top 10 hikes of Crater Lake National Park

Dear Friends,

The first time I ever saw cobalt water was 1993. Nine years old, Uncle had brought me from the Viking’s cockpit to the tuna tower, a secret we always hid from Mother. The horizon was fuzzy. There was a golden line and a change in hue. As we approached, the gold came into focus as sargassum mats, hundreds of feet thick, undulating gracefully atop the two foot swells, glimmered in the morning light.

There were frigates aplenty. Flying fish danced on the water’s surface as chicken dolphin gave chase. As we crossed the mats of gold, the water went from greenish blue to the most wondrous cobalt blue I had ever seen. The wheelwash was a perfect white tinted with blue. I will never forget just how blue that water was. The line between that water and the clear, blue sky was seamless. No one forgets the first time he sees water so beautiful.

8,000 years ago, two thousand years after ancient Indians first inhabited the area, the tallest point in Oregon was a 12,000 foot volcanic mountain known today as Mount Mazama. Its build to the heavens took hundreds of thousands of years. And in one short moment, the earth shook and the mountain erupted in a great cataclysm, the greatest eruption the Cascades has seen in a million years.

The rocks split and the mountain crashed upon itself. The hallowed peak hollowed and became a crater. Nothing and no one survived. No creation or end of world oral stories or legends made it out, so violent and all-encompassing was this fire. The land was a formless fire. It was prehistoric chaos.

But something wonderful over the millennia has happened. The spirit of creation brooded over the deep void, sweeping from one edge of the rim to the other. Like manna from heaven, water sprinkled down over that six mile wide chasm in the surface, filling it.

Today, there are over 4.6 trillion gallons of pure water in that sapphire chalice. The first time you stand on the edge of Crater Lake National Park’s rim and look down the 1000 foot precipice, you will not believe your eyes. The profundity of that blue will stop you in your tracks and you will stand in awe at God’s most wonderful creation. You see chaos that has become order and beauty and life.

Crater Lake is one of the most beautiful spots on Earth, and many people, even Americans, have never heard of it. Although it is firmly planted in my Top 10 favorite parks in America, few lists of the best national parks in America list it. Is it a ploy to keep the park quiet and let the hordes go to Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, and Yosemite?



It is my desire to share with you this park, which is so close to my heart. My hope is that you will one day be able to visit and see this wonderful place that has inspired me and every day, if I think of it, gives me joy. Good news and good places are not meant to be secret. They were generously given and all should hope others will share them with us.





Crater Lake is a four hour drive south of Portland and a seven hour drive north of San Francisco. It is part of the Cascade Range, with deep Oregonian forests surrounding it, with a desert not too far east. It is a tennis shoe hiking park. There are no specifically difficult or dangerous trails. Boots, crampons, ropes and other gear are unnecessary. All one needs is a good pair of lungs, functioning legs, and tennis shoes to explore most of its trails. And some of its trails are accessible to those in wheelchairs.

My most recent entrance experience was quite odd. A large nearby fire had made visibility poor and the entrance booths were closed, as were the boat tours. Stacks of brush were gathered to reduce the risk of fire in the park. A ranger siad they would burn this stacks once they had their first good snowfall. I had but 24 hours planned in the park. If you have never been here, 24 hours is no where near enough. I recommend three to four days for first timers.





(pointy mt)

When arriving from the north, the first chance at seeing the Lake is Merriam Point, which on a clear day gives an incredible view of the southern rim and Wizard Island. Today, however, the smoke obscured views making them vaporous and pallid.









Often my first stop at national parks is in the gift shop to purchase gifts and get postcards. Never underestimate the meaning of postcards. They are perfect time capsules and ways to show your loved ones that you are thinking of them in their absence. I was able to purchase Mother a Pendleton towel with the Crater Lake design, which in my view, is arguably the best or second best Pendleton National Park design. Only Glacier rivals it. I then peered out the window at the Rim Village Cafe, where I waited for the smoke to clear a little. I had plenty of Great Value granola bars and chips, so no food was purchased.







Much of the Visitor’s Center was under construction, and the post office took me several minutes to find because it was located in this rectangle. I am happy that my recipients, including a few OT members, got the Crater Lake stamp and postmark. Again, postcards are signs of gentility and kindness, and they are good for the writer, too, as he is able to reflect on what he is seeing.






When visiting any National Park, if available, I strongly encourage you to stay at the NP lodge. In 2014, Xanterra signed a twenty year contract with the NPS agreeing to take control of most of the Park Service’s lodges. In this frequent guest’s opinion, it has so far been a great success. The lodges are better maintained and cleaner than they were a decade ago. The staff, even with the dip in customer service have seen the last three years, is overall excellent.

Crater Lake Lodge is a cozy, historic lodge that was built from 1909-1915 as a private investment in the park. One can only imagine how difficult it was to build something like this on the edge of a volcano’s lip at 8,000’ elevation hundreds of miles from the nearest city. Spartan accommodations and rustic, Grandfather tells me that when he stayed there in the 1959, eight years before the NPS bought it, he could not walk barefoot due to the splinters from the wood flooring. Although the lodge today may feel historic, it was essentially rebuilt from 1991-1995 with some stones and features reused. It is not as grand as The Ahwahnee, but it is a great, if diminutive, lodge.