Leslie, Sherry and I headed up to Crater Lake National Park to hike Crater Peak. The last time I could find that AHG hiked here was in 2014.

As per the trailhead information sign: “Crater Peak: The route travels initially through a quiet forest of mountain hemlock and Shasta red fir along Vidae Ridge, … Crater Peak is the largest of several small volcanoes called cinder cones associated with Mount Mazama. Crater Peak drew from the same magma chamber as Mount Mazama but long before Mazama's climactic eruption and collapse 7700 years ago. ...”

We made our way along the forest trail and then came to a rocky area. As we hiked we could see some signs of elk tracks along the trail. We re-entered a forest section and slowly made our climb. We could see where there were blue diamond signs high up on the tree and assumed it was for cross country skiers.

As we were nearing the top, the trail got a bit more steep. We came to the top and could hear voices as we were making a choice on which direction we would go around the top of the crater. We decided to go counter clockwise. We were greeted by 4 nice hikers. At about half way around, we determined that was the high point of the trail. We continued around and found a nice spot to sit and enjoy a long lunch. While we were there, we spotted Mount Scott, Union Peak, The Watchman, Hillman Peak and could see the base of Mount McLoughlin as the top was covered in clouds.

We headed back down the trail and were then able to see Mount Thielsen and McLoughlin was in good view. We stopped for a bit and visited with 2 ladies that were visiting the park and enjoying many of the trails there.

After getting back to our car, we had hiked 7 miles and gained 1,213 feet of elevation. We decided to go and look at Vidae Falls and then drove up to the Sun Notch lookout and saw the Phantom Ship. There is still road work being done from Skell Head to Phantom Ship Overlook. Next time, we will go to Sun Notch and do the ¾ mile hike to the Phantom Ship overlook.