We were a little sad leaving the Redwoods as it would be our last sight of the Pacific and our time living and hiking amongst the giant trees has been magical.
There are two wildfires currently blazing to the west and south of Crater Lake so the west rim area is completely closed and they have a “get ready” evacuation order in place for the main rim village and visitor center. We have camping reservations southwest of Crater and called ahead to check about safety and air quality before starting our drive. We almost decided to bypass Crater completely but decided to take a chance as long as we were somewhat close.
We arrived in late afternoon and stopped by the visitor center to watch an intro video and learn more about the lake. We spent some time along the southern rim taking pictures but the sky was hazy with smoke from the fires so the view was less impressive than it is known for. We headed back to our campground and setup in a wonderful spot. Grace and Noah went exploring the area and we enjoyed dinner while contemplating our next day–deciding ultimately to leave early the next morning to head north rather than stay another night.
We learned earlier that this happened to be National S’mores Day and had stocked up at a nearby grocery store with creative combinations to properly celebrate the occasion. The kids have had s’mores almost every night so this had to be special. Chocolate covered graham crackers, mint chocolate cookies, and reese’s peanut butter cups were in order.
We were in luck the next morning as we woke to a mostly clear blue sky so we decided to drive around the scenic east rim of Crater Lake before heading North toward Mt. Rainier. We have become pretty adept at camp setup and breakdown so we were awake, packed, and on the road in about 30 minutes. The kids were looking forward to spending the next night at a hotel with real beds, a pool, and Wifi 😉
The winds had smoke from the fires heading North instead of West today so we had some pretty decent conditions for viewing the lake all things considered.
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