Passport

A Park Hub Field Guide

Lat 42.9111° N
Long 122.1435° W

Elevation6,178 – 8,929 ft

Oregon · Stamp 15 / 63

Crater Lake

National Park · Established 1902

The deepest lake in America, filling a volcano that blew its own top off 7,700 years ago, water so clear it barely looks real.

Area183,224 acres

TrailheadCrater Lake, Oregon

Visitors620k / yr

Scroll to begin the ascent

Live · Rim Village open Cleetwood Cove Trail closed 2026–2028 for rehabilitation 1 active alert 58°F · rim air Live layer, from the National Park Service

Best windowJul–Sep · Rim Drive often snowbound into July Getting there1.5 hr from Bend · 4.5 hr from Portland Fee$30 / vehicle · 7 days

★★★★★ 4.9 from 9 travelers 2 visitor stories 620k annual visitors Grounded in live NPS data

Crater Lake · Mile 01 · The Story

A mountain that blew
its own top off.

About 7,700 years ago, a 12,000-foot volcano called Mount Mazama erupted so violently it collapsed in on itself, leaving a caldera nearly six miles across where a peak used to stand. Rain and snowmelt filled the hole over the following centuries, and the result is the deepest lake in the United States: 1,949 feet at its deepest point, so pure that sunlight penetrates nearly 100 feet down, which is exactly why the water reads as an almost unnatural shade of blue.

Wizard Island, the cinder cone rising from the lake's western side, is a volcano inside the volcano, evidence that Mazama is not entirely finished. For most of the 2026 through 2028 seasons, the only trail down to the water, Cleetwood Cove, is closed for a major rehabilitation project, which means no swimming and no boat tours to the island during that window. The rim views remain, and they remain extraordinary.

Come for the color of the water. Stay for the fact that you are looking at the inside of a volcano that erupted forty times more powerfully than Mount St. Helens. Read the story, check the live data above before you go, and when you leave, collect the stamp.

Product photo coming soon

From $11.98

Premium matte paper, museum-quality print. Ships in a protective tube. Price varies by size, chosen at checkout.

Get Your Crater Lake Poster →

“

For the first time in my life I looked down into the blue waters of Crater Lake ... a spectacle of rare beauty.

William Gladstone Steel, whose decades of advocacy led to the park's creation in 1902

Wizard Island · A Volcano Within

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

John Muir

Crater Lake · Mile 02 · The Essentials

Best Things to Do in Crater Lake

Six ways to see it, from a rim overlook a hundred steps from the car to a full loop around the caldera.

See

Rim Village at sunrise

The classic first look, with the lake laid out below and Wizard Island rising from the blue. Cold even in July; bring a layer.

Everyone · 30 min

Drive

Rim Drive

A 33-mile loop around the entire caldera with over thirty pullouts. Often not fully open until mid-July due to snow.

The signature drive

Watchman Overlook

A short climb to the best head-on view of Wizard Island anywhere in the park, especially good at sunset.

Photographers · 1 hr

See

Phantom Ship Overlook

A short walk to a view of the jagged rock formation that looks, from the right angle, exactly like a ghostly sailing ship.

Everyone · 20 min

Camp

Mazama Campground

The park's main campground, a short drive from Rim Village. Reserve ahead for summer weekends.

Campers · book ahead

Explore

Crater Lake Lodge

A 1915 rim-edge lodge with a wraparound porch built for exactly one purpose: sitting and looking at the lake.

Everyone · anytime

Free · Ready in Seconds

Free AI Trip Planner

Plan Your Crater Lake Trip

Answer a few questions right here — we'll map your day, stop by stop, with a route, timings, weather, and a packing checklist grounded in real park data. No account, no leaving this page.

Free preview · no card required

When the Crowds ComeMonthly visitors · tap a year

Illustrative shape · wires to official NPS visitation stats · summer peaks shown in gold

The Deepest Water in America

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit."

Edward Abbey

Crater Lake · Mile 03 · Trails & Viewpoints

Best Hikes in Crater Lake, by Difficulty

Every trail rated honestly, with distance, climb, and a clear note on the one trail that's closed through 2028.

Godfrey Glen Trail

Easy

1 miflat~45 min

A gentle loop through old-growth forest and a canyon carved into ancient volcanic ash. No permit.

Discovery Point Trail

Easy

2.2 mi+150 ft~1.5 hr

Follows the rim from Rim Village to the spot where the lake was first reported by a non-Indigenous prospector in 1853. No permit.

Watchman Peak

Easy–Mod

1.6 mi+420 ft~1.5 hr

A steady switchback climb to a 1930s fire lookout with the best angle on Wizard Island in the park. No permit.

Closed 2026–2028

Cleetwood Cove Trail

Closed

2.2 mi-670 ftn/a

The only trail to the shoreline and the only way to reach the boat dock, closed for a major rehabilitation project through the 2028 season. Reopens summer 2029.

Garfield Peak

Strenuous

3.4 mi+1,010 ft~3 hr

A steep climb from Crater Lake Lodge to a summit above 8,000 feet with a full panorama of the caldera. No permit.

Permit · overnight

Mount Scott

Extreme

4.4 mi+1,250 ft4–5 hr

The park's highest point at 8,929 feet, with a fire lookout and a view stretching to the Cascade volcanoes on a clear day. Wilderness permit required only for overnight camping.

Cleetwood Cove Trail and boat tours closed through 2028 for rehabilitation · wilderness permits via Recreation.gov for overnight camping · no permit for other day hikes

Crater Lake National Park at a Glance

1 Rim Visitor Center

2 Wizard Island

3 Cleetwood Cove Trail (closed 2026–2028)

4 Watchman Peak Trailhead

5 Phantom Ship Overlook

6 Crater Lake Lodge

Stops shown in visit order. Build a plan above and this map updates to your exact stops.

Crater Lake · Mile 04 · Life on the Rim

Wildlife in Crater Lake: Animals You Might See

Tap any animal to learn its story. Soon, the app will let you log what you spot and keep a life list for every park.

A gray, jay-sized bird with a special pouch under its tongue for carrying whitebark pine seeds, planting most of the forest it depends on.

Common in the forested slopes below the rim, most active at dawn and dusk along the park's quieter roads.

Present throughout the park's forests. Food storage rules apply at every campground and trailhead.

A tiny alpine relative of the rabbit living in the rocky rim talus, sensitive to warming temperatures and worth listening for its sharp warning chirp.

Nests on the sheer caldera walls, diving at extraordinary speeds over the lake itself, one of the more dramatic sights for patient rim-walkers.

The lake had no native fish at all until early stocking efforts; kokanee and rainbow trout are now the only species present, in a lake that never had fish before people arrived.

Several beetle species found on the caldera rim exist almost nowhere else, adapted to the volcanic soil and short growing season unique to this elevation.

Plant Life in Crater Lake: What Grows Here

A gnarled, wind-sculpted pine clinging to the exposed rim, now under serious threat from blister rust across its range.

Thrives under the caldera's heavy winter snowpack, its flexible branches shedding snow load that would break less adapted trees.

A rare shrub known from only a handful of locations worldwide, most of them within or near this park's volcanic soils.

A low, sprawling plant that thrives directly in the loose volcanic pumice around the rim, its fuzzy pink flower clusters resembling tiny paws.

A mat-forming shrub with vivid purple blooms wedged into rocky crevices along the rim trails, tough enough to survive in almost no soil at all.

Dominates the forest belt below the rim, its thick, corky bark helping it survive the fires that periodically sweep through these slopes.

Fun Facts About Crater Lake

Fact 01

At 1,949 feet, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and one of the deepest on Earth.

Fact 02

The lake formed after Mount Mazama erupted roughly 7,700 years ago with a force estimated at 40 times that of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

Fact 03

The water's famous blue color comes from its extraordinary clarity, which allows sunlight to penetrate nearly 100 feet before scattering.

Fact 04

The Cleetwood Cove Trail, the only route to the shoreline, is closed for the 2026, 2027, and 2028 seasons for a major safety rehabilitation, reopening in 2029.

Crater Lake · Provisions

Gear for this parkvia AvantLink

Layered jacket (rim wind)REI

Trekking polesBackcountry

2L hydration packOsprey

Stay nearbyvia Hipcamp

Forest sites near the south entrance
Twenty minutes from Rim Village, pine shade included, from $27 a night.

Free Crater Lake checklistdigital · $0

The printable trail and packing checklist in the field-guide style. Take it, join the trail list.

Crater Lake · Mile 05 · From the Field Journal

Go Deeper on Crater Lake

Stories, guides, and hard-won tips from the trail. The full Crater Lake deep dive lives on the journal.

Access

★Crater LakePark Hub · Collected

Your passport

One stamp,
one story.

Log the visit, keep your story, and watch the map of all sixty-three fill in behind you. Every stamp has a keepsake worth holding.

Crater Lake · Mile 06 · Where to Next

Keep the Journey Going

Next park

Mount Rainier

North through the Cascades: from a collapsed volcano to a very much intact one.

Open Stamp 16 → The collection

All 63 Parks

See the full map and track every stamp you have earned.

View the map → Plan

Build a Trip

Turn Crater Lake into a road trip with a custom, day-by-day itinerary.

Start planning → Go deeper

The Crater Lake Deep Dive

The long-form guide: every trail, season, and secret, on the journal.

Read it →

Carry the field guide

Offline maps, your passport, and every park in your pocket on the trail.

The Book

Keepsake

The Park Hub field guide

The printed edition, part atlas, part journal, one story per park.

The Shop

Prints · pins · passport

Take Crater Lake home

Field-guide posters, enamel stamps, and the passport book to fill in.

Forty-eight parks remain

"The parks do not belong to one state or to one section... they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona."

Stephen Mather · first director of the National Park Service

Begin your journey