Scratching the itch to go on a road trip, we took a 3 day drive and visited Crater Lake in southern Oregon and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in northern California. We’d been to both of these places before.
Day 1 - Sept 3, 2019 Last updated: 9/6/19 3:00pm PT
Our ultimate destination was the giant redwoods in Jedediah Smith state park. Along the way is Crater Lake. We had purchased the National Park Service annual pass for our drive to Colorado a few months ago. To further get our money’s worth from the park pass, we stopped at Crater Lake on this trip.
There are many viewpoints to stop at along the crater rim road. There is one trail that you can hike 1.1 miles, down 700 ft in elevation, to the lake’s edge. The water is a deep blue.
We last visited Crater Lake in 2008, and 11 years later, it was MUCH harder to hike back up the 700 feet from the lake surface to the top of the crater rim. I don’t think the trail is steeper, I think we are just accumulating age.
We enjoyed the first visit more than the second. Yeah, it was pretty, and I’m sure the exhausting hike up the hill clouded our opinion a bit, but it wasn’t as impressive the second time. You should go if you haven’t. I’m just not sure it’s worth a second visit.
Pictures from the lake’s edge.
Pictures from the rim.
A little past Crater Lake are some viewpoints of the Rogue River. Here we are standing next to a gorge cut by the river. At one point the river goes underground in an old lava tube before reemerging above ground.
We spent the night in Medford, OR