Northwest Day 12: Crater Lake to Medford

Friday, August 1, 2014

Odometer: 1891

After packing up our campsite and taking a short hike in LaPine State Park, we drove the relatively short distance to Crater Lake National Park, and it was a beautiful day for our visit. After a brief stop at the north rim, we spent more time at Rim Village, including lunch at the snack bar and a little browsing in the gift shop. We then walked over to Crater Lake Lodge, another classic national park hotel, and wished we had lunch there. I don’t remember having seen the Lodge on previous visits, and it was closed for extensive rebuilding at the time of our 1993 trip. There was an informative exhibit on the history of the Lodge showing the reconstruction process.

Registration desk at Crater Lake Lodge

Following our visit to Rim Village, we continued to a viewpoint further south and took a short hike to another viewpoint to see the Phantom Ship, a small island in the lake, before continuing our trip to Medford.

We decided to stay in Medford as a jumping-off point for visits to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, since hotel accommodations there were tight. We wanted to see some of Medford as well, so for dinner, we went downtown to a restaurant located in the former train depot. Medford’s downtown is quite pleasant, about as one might expect for a small city of that sort.

Mileage today: 187 miles

This article is part of a series about our recent driving vacation to the Pacific Northwest. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.