Fourth of July Week in Crater Lake National Park

Spoiler alert: Crater Lake is stunning.

We started our journey to Crater Lake National Park with a busy day. The drive to Crater Lake from Redwood National Park was 4 hours, but we had some chores to do along the way including groceries and our first ever car wash for the van. I am sure it is not hard to imagine that the van had collected a good layer of dust throughout our travels. It finally got to the point where we found it necessary to give it some love with a nice cleaning at a self-service car wash.

We got to the park in the afternoon and went straight to a trail that we had picked out. The trail was a nice trek that went a couple of miles along the rim of the lake. As we first walked up to the lake, our jaws dropped. It was an incredible view! The water is incredibly blue, the peaks near the lake were snow capped, and the sun was shining. It was quite the site to take in!

We finished the day with showering while in the parking lot, filling our water tank, and emptying our gray water before heading to our free campsite that was about 30 minutes outside the park. The campground had a few sites in the woods, but also had a large parking lot. While it is not quite as scenic, the parking lot suited our needs and gave us good access to the sky for solar and internet, so we spent most of our time on the pavement during our time there.

A Bit About Crater Lake National Park

The lake was astonishingly formed by an eruption of a volcano roughly 7,700 years ago. The eruption caused the mountain to sort of cave in on itself and form a giant, well, crater in the ground. Over the years, lava filled in all of the holes and cracks in the newly formed crater and allowed for water to fill in the area with rainfall and snow. The lake is the deepest in the country and widely considered one of the most pristine in the world. Its purity (and deep blue color) are mostly attributed to the fact that the lake isn't connected to any outside sources. This prevents dirt and grime from being fed into the lake. Information comes courtesy of the National Park Service – and I would recommend reading more here, if you are interested! I will have to say that this park was one of the more interesting ones for the nerd in me.

More Stunning Views… Just in Time!

Our second day at Crater Lake we headed toward one of the more popular trails in the national park, Watchman’s Peak Trail. This trail was a relatively steep climb to a fire lookout where you had gorgeous views of the lake and the surrounding valley and mountain range. But the journey getting to the lookout was not an easy one. Roughly two-thirds of the trail was snow-covered. Thankfully many had gone before us and carved a bit of a trail into the snow that was on the side of the mountain slope. It was intimidating to look to our side and see nothing but a snow covered slope leading straight to the road below. But as we continued on the trail we got more and more comfortable. The views at the end certainly made the trek worth it! However, upon returning to our van we saw a sign that read “trail closed” – that warning was not there when we started the hike! I said we got there just in time, Kendra wasn’t too sure about that sentiment… I don’t think she would have minded sitting that one out.

A Unique 4th of July

Our independence day celebrations were much more muted than past years. It may have been the first 4th of July without seeing any fireworks. We started the day with a half day of work since we didn’t have a whole lot to do. After working for a bit, we headed to a popular hike that takes you down to the lake. This trail is actually the only way to get down to the water in the whole park. There are no roads anywhere that lead to the water. The park and its partners also do some boat tours in the lake and we read that the boats, along with all of the necessary equipment had to be lifted into the lake via helicopter.

Upon reaching the shores of the lake, we found crowds of people sitting on the rocks that lined the cove. We walked along the rocks until we found a relatively secluded area where we sat to relax for a bit. While Kendra wasn’t on the same page, I felt it would be a crime not to jump in and do a bit of swimming. So that’s what I did. It was really REALLY cold. I didn’t last long… The warm rocks and the sun beating down on my skin provided a nice relief from the cold water. We laid in the sun for a while before deciding it was probably best to head back up to the top for the evening.

Our Final Day in Crater Lake

For the last day, we only had one more trail that we were hoping to do. We also wanted to avoid the heat that came with staying at lower elevations where our campground was, so we headed up to the parking lot at the trailhead of our last hike and set up camp there. We worked for a while before hiking the Sun Notch Trail, a short hike to the rim of the lake where you could see the Phantom Ship – a rock formation jutting up out of the water.

Toketee Falls

The following day we drove north through the park and to a campground about an hour or so outside the national park, to see a popular waterfall attraction, Toketee Falls. We did the short hike to the falls in some brutally hot 100-some degree weather and were a bit disappointed when we got to the end of the trail and realized that there was no way to get to the base of the falls. Not only would that have been a much better view, but the water would have been refreshing. The waterfall was very beautiful nonetheless. We took some photos and headed back to the campsite that we had gotten for the night only a few minutes from the trailhead.

More Jaw-Dropping Coast

As we were making our plans for the trip from Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, to our next stop, Tillamook, in northern Oregon, we hoped to stay one night somewhere along the coast so that we could split up the drive to maximize our time and see all of the sights we wanted to see. Unfortunately, with it being 4th of July weekend, all of the campgrounds on the coast were completely booked days in advance. We had to do our best to see all that we wanted to see in a single day along with the 5.5 hours of driving it would take to get to our campsite.

We woke up early and got on the road as quickly as we could. Our first stop along the coast was the Oregon sand dunes – one of the largest coastal dunes in the world.

Next we stopped at a really popular area with some neat rocky coastal features. The sights included Spouting Horn, Thor’s Well, Devil’s Churn, and Cape Cove Beach. We did a few trails that connected the sights, spending a couple of hours in the area.

The next stop on our list was a bit of a climb up a road to Cape Perpetua overlook. We did a short hike to an incredible view of all of the sites that we had just seen, but from a high point of view.

We stopped at a number of other pullouts along the way but found ourselves getting more and more exhausted as the day went on, so the enjoyment died down a bit. We saw some incredible views nonetheless!

Tillamook, Oregon 🧀

We found a gem of a Harvest Host in the coastal town of Tillamook, Oregon at Blue Heron Cheese Company. It was a neat place to stay with a cafe, store, candy shop, petting zoo, etc. Harvest Hosts asks that you spend some money on the host’s products or services if you are going to spend the night, so we decided to go on a bit of a mid-workday date and get some lunch at the cafe. We ordered sandwiches and a soup and were pleasantly surprised with the tastiness of our meal! Kendra said it was her favorite meal of the whole trip!

That evening we were again spoiled with good food at the Tillamook Creamery. Tillamook is a large producer of cheese and other dairy products. We got hooked on their cheese and ice cream after Kendra’s parents recommended it to us. Her parents also recommended the Tillamook factory tour after recently doing it themselves. The tour was a self-guided walk where you got an inside look at the factory, with some information on what each machine and worker was doing. It was really neat to see the process that cow’s milk undergoes to become cheese! It was also fascinating to watch factory employees in action. Some were watching the wrapped cheese ride along conveyer belts inspecting each one for imperfections, others were weighing the blocks and either adding or removing thin layers to get them to the proper weight. The process was relatively machine heavy too, so it was cool to see some of the intricate machinery doing its thing. If it isn’t obvious by now, I found the whole factory to be extremely interesting and would highly recommend to anyone who finds themselves near Tillamook, Oregon!

After the tour, we picked up some free samples of the cheese 😋 and walked through the store. We debated on whether to get fresh ice cream from the cafe or to get a pint of ice cream – but decided that the pint would get us the most amount of ice cream for our money, so that was the clear choice for us. We sat outside on the picnic table and enjoyed some of our ice cream before stuffing the rest into our freezer and getting ready to move on to our next stops, Portland, Oregon and Mount Rainier National Park.

My Current State of Mind

We are having a great time and feeling so grateful for how smooth things have been going over the last few weeks (knock on wood). But we are also feeling a bit of homesickness as we miss the many that we love back in Ohio. I have had mixed feelings when I think about the end of this trip.  I am so grateful for the many beautiful places that we have gotten to see, but I am always thinking about the many places that we have yet to see. I know that we can’t see everything, so I am learning to take each moment and every experience captive – being grateful for each opportunity for what it is – not what it could have been. It is challenging at times, but I hope to be able to look back at this trip with more “that was such an awesome experience” and less “man, I wish we could have seen that.”

Thanks for reading y’all!