Try again in July
Jenny and I went up to Oregon’s Crater Lake this week. We decided to camp at a state park 40 miles south of Crater Lake, since there is no camping at Crater Lake this time of year.
That should have been our clue.
When we got there, the weather was beautiful: high 60s, a light breeze, sunny. Perfect camping weather. By nightfall, however, clouds started blowing in, and soon it was raining. It never really stopped. My hand-me-down tent was slightly leaky, so that didn’t help matters.
The next morning, we drove up to the lake. On the way there, things got snowier and snowier — at the visitor center, snow was piled nearly ten feet high next to the road. At the rim of the caldera, there was a bona fide blizzard. You could barely see the lake (see picture above.)
We did, however, get to see the Rogue River gorge, which was absolutely awesome. In the course of a few miles, it goes from being a small mountain stream to twenty-foot-tall waterfall to underground river. Wouldn’t want to go for a swim there.
The forecast for the next night was even worse, with freezing temperatures and snow showers at the campground — so we called it quits and decided to get a motel at Mount Shasta. As we were leaving Oregon on I-5, however, we were hit with yet another blizzard. It feels like Oregon chewed us up and spit us out.
We’ll give it another shot come July.
