When we began our trip the first six months were pretty planned out day-by-day, stop-by-stop. As we have gotten further along, one thing we have learned is while the plan has been critical it’s just as important to be flexible. While we were along Oregon Coast our original plan was to head to Crater Lake National Park with Paula and Carolyn, followed by a couple of days at Lassen National Park before heading to the California coast. But now that it’s fall, temps are getting cooler and when we checked weather for Crater Lake we learned the area was getting snow. Call us soft, but the thought of driving four hours to hang out in subfreezing temps and deal with icy roads isn’t our idea of ideal, so we changed things up and altered our plan to skip Lassen and instead go to Crater Lake a bit later when a better forecast was in our future.

To shorten our trip and wait-out the weather, we added a night’s stay along the way. Harvest Hosts has been great so far, but we had yet to stay at a winery (which was one of our initial draws). Still in Oregon wine country, we took advance of our location and made plans to stay at Delfino Winery the night before heading to the park. As an added bonus the winery is part of Oregon’s Rogue River AVA, which meant we got to squeeze in an additional tasting down the road before pulling into our spot for the night.

I really can’t say enough about our experience. The folks at Delfino were incredibly welcoming and friendly, as a matter of fact, we were greeted by their head winemaker as we pulled in. We learned all about their history and how the current harvest was doing, which was in the process of being picked. Their wine was great too, so not a bad place to spend the night.

We left the following morning for Farewell Bend Campground in the Umpqua National Forest, just west of Crater Lake. After nearly four months in, this might have been my favorite campground to date. Since we are officially in off-season, with the exception of the camp host, we had the entire place to ourselves. But it was more than the privacy, it was the setting. Our spot was surrounded by tall pines. Cutting behind our site was a small gorge made by the Rogue River. We could have stood on the rocky banks and watched the water push through its narrow passageway all night, but we had a party to throw. 

The real highlight of that night’s stay was celebrating Wyatt’s 12th birthday. We had to check his birth certificate because we still can’t believe he’s that old, but sadly he is. And what’s the perfect birthday gift for a newly minted 12 year old? His own axe, of course. He was absolutely thrilled – high praise from a kid who’s typically hard to buy for – and did a great job of splitting his first logs.  

So far the majority of our experiences at National Parks have been overwhelming – in a good way. As we’ve mentioned several times on this blog, it’s probably because we go in a bit unprepared and are amazed once we get inside the boundaries. Crater Lake was a bit of an outlier. We had heard from so many people that this was not a park to miss. Maybe it’s because we woke up to mid 30’s temps or maybe it’s because, as I texted a friend of mine “we’ve just become spoiled by what we’ve seen so far.” But honestly, we were a bit underwhelmed by Crater Lake. There, I said it. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing place. Its 2100’+ deep caldera (or depression) was formed after a volcanic eruption nearly 8,000 years ago. Thanks to snowfall of over 500” per year, the caldera eventually filled to create the deepest lake in the US. Since all of the water stays in the basin and doesn’t have any tributaries flowing in or out, it’s also the clearest lake in the world. All cool facts and features.

When we arrived there was still lots of snow surrounding the lake but fortunately all of the road were clear. We drove the 31 mile loop around the lake to see many of the caldera’s highlights. One of the more interesting detours was the pumice field that sits a few miles below the loop. The barren field is 250’ deep with pumice rock which was created from the spewing lava during the big eruption 77 centuries ago. Even with our somewhat short visit, Maya managed to earn her latest Junior ranger badge along the way.

With more cold temps in the forecast, a 7+ hour drive in our future, and friends meeting us at our next stop, we said goodbye to our favorite campsite and to get a head-start on our next adventures.