As you travel throughout the west coast folks will often ask, “Have you been to Crater Lake National Park?” It tends to be a “bucket-lister” for a lot of people and it has been ours for a long time. To see a collapsed volcano cone this size and filled with the impossibly deepest blue water imaginable has to be seen to be believed. We headed inland leaving the Yurok and the mouth of the Klamath behind, for now.
Attempting to find a vacant camp site in National Parks is very sketchy. Most of the time they are full, having been reserved many months in advance. Though there are usually a few sites available on a first come-first served basis, lines can be a dozen deep or more for those. To top it off in our estimations these national park campgrounds are cramped and barely able to handle an RV over 35’ in length. Our strategy has evolved into staying as close as we can just outside the park in National Forest land. These campgrounds are typically more available and often in a better setting than the park sites. You can get closer to that one on one feeling with nature that we’re after. Mill Creek Campground is a perfect example of this.
Located a mile off the main road to the National Park down a dirt road, Mill Creek is a gem of a camp. You find yourself traveling up hill a long way toward the Crater. Streams and rivulets stream down from the Lake and the springs that emerge from the volcanic tubes of the mountain. Mill Creek is one of the main streams there. Where we are camped the stream is about 5 to 10 feet wide, twisting and falling over roots and rocks amid thick growth of forest. The camp sites are spacious and ours backs into the stream. The sound of rushing water fills the air. As I sit outside and play my guitar amidst this backdrop I’m inspired beyond measure. We call Cindy and Dusty to tell them of this spot and they arrive within a day or two to share in the beauty and solace of this forest setting.
Hiking in the immediate area down the narrow dirt roads canopied in deep green I stumble across numerous sign of large mammals. Bear scat, cougar tracks, and animal trails are present. The feeling of wilderness, that uninhibited emotion of freedom and sometime wariness, fills our souls. The stream is filled with trout and catching them is not difficult. Nearby is yet another river, this one roaring down the slopes. It actually disappears into a lava tube for several hundred feet only to explode from the earth downstream.
Crater Lake is like a dream in blue. Words are no good. Pictures even fail it. Tribal peoples were in such awe of it that they believed a giant crawdad lived in its depths who would clasp unsuspecting people who drifted too close to its edge in its claws and return to the deep with them in tow. Hollywood producers aren’t the only people with immense imaginations. What the hell, maybe it is true. On the days we visited it was cloudy punctuated by spotty and spitting rain. The lake’s blue mirror is brightest in the full sun, but even on these cloudy and dismal days it was a deep blue of which I’ve never witnessed before. It’s monstrously big as well. The sharp edges and drops of the sides of the caldera create a foreboding challenge to reaching the water. Deeply below us a lone boat slowly trolls across the lake. This is a forest service boat performing research deep within its blue depths. We can scarce take it all in.