Locked out of Crater Lake

We left Bend with the purpose of visiting Crater Lake National Park, which Kerri had not yet been too. Originally, the plan was to migrate all the way to Klamath Falls and day-trip into the park from there, but Kerri found a nice spot to camp right outside of the North entrance of the park; Diamond Lake.

After nearly a week worth of rain and cold while in Bend, the area around the National Park was well saturated with both rain and snow. When we pulled into the campground, a light dusting of snow awaited us, but did not scare us away. Instead we cranked up the generator and settled in for a single night’s stay. The NPS had just – the day before – closed the North entrance to the park due to snowfall. We were hoping to be able to make a run into he park once the snow was cleared however. It was our first time staying in the snow, since we met, and a nice novelty it was.

A second day of snow kept the entrance closed but we decided to stay the week here anyway. We moved spots after doing a little recon on day-2. The generator had enough fuel for a few days work, but on Wednesday I was forced to make the 45 minute one-way trek into the nearest town to do laundry, refill one of the trailer’s propane tanks, and grab more fuel for the generator. This allowed us to stay the remainder of the week with the furnace keeping us warm and the generator working 12 hours a day. Cold and rain persisted, but we had the place to ourselves and were pleased to stay put.

With an awe inspiring view of the lake and Mt Bailey – which only appeared through the clouds on our third day – to our West, it was not a bad place to spend the work week anyway. Each day we checked the NPS website in hopes that the lack of continued snow would allow us to make an early morning run into the park, but it never came. On our final day here the park service finally called it quits and announced that the North entrance was closed for the winter. We would be forced to take the long way around next week when we are in the Klamath Falls area.