Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake National Park, in the Oregon Cascades, covers about 183,224 acres around a lake 1,943 feet deep. The Park Service calls it the deepest lake in the United States. The park dates from 22 May 1902. It had 632,242 recreation visits in 2025, three quarters of them in July, August and September.

Winter changes almost everything here: the rim road shuts, the lodges close and the snow lies feet deep. We checked the figures below on 27 October 2026 on the park's own pages and alerts, the concessioner's site, Recreation.gov and NOAA's normals.

What is still open now that Rim Drive has closed?

Crater Lake's North Entrance Road and most of Rim Drive closed to cars for the winter on 26 October 2026, earlier than the usual 1 November. On 27 October the park's alert also listed Cloudcap and Pinnacles Road as closed. The West and South Entrances on Highway 62 stay open all year. The park admits visitors 24 hours a day.

The road from Highway 62 to Rim Village, 7 miles long, also stays open, so visitors can still see the lake from the rim. Its last 3 miles, from park headquarters up to the rim, are steep and sometimes close for days or weeks after heavy snow.

On 26 October the park's conditions page listed what was still open. The Steel Information Center at headquarters opens from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and the Rim Village visitor contact station from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Rim Café and Gift Shop, the Annie Creek Gift Shop, Sinnott Memorial Overlook and the Rim Village toilets stay open too.

Closed for the season are Crater Lake Lodge, the Cabins at Mazama Village, Mazama Campground and its store. So are Annie Creek Restaurant, Lost Creek Campground, the trolleys and the petrol pumps. Lower on the same page, a road table still showed Rim Drive open and a paragraph called the lodge and cabins open. The alert and the concessioner's dates both say closed.

How much does Crater Lake cost from 1 November?

Entry to Crater Lake costs $20 per car for seven days from 1 November to 21 May, the winter rate. From 22 May to 31 October it costs $30. A motorcycle pays $15 in winter and $25 in summer, and a person on foot or bicycle $15. Children under 16 enter free.

The park is not on the 2026 list of eleven parks with a $100 surcharge, so visitors from abroad pay exactly what Americans pay. It has been cashless since 1 January 2023 and takes debit and credit cards plus Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Entry needs no reservation.

The park's own $55 annual pass is sold only to US citizens and residents, and the 2026 fee-free days apply to US residents only. The $250 non-resident America the Beautiful pass does not pay off at this park alone. Our guide to national park fees for international visitors lists the parks where it does.

Why is the Cleetwood Cove Trail to the shore closed?

The Cleetwood Cove Trail, the only legal access to Crater Lake's shore, has stayed shut for a rebuild since 1 November 2025. The Park Service expects the work to take three summers. With it closed there is no swimming, no shore fishing and no boat trip to Wizard Island.

The trail drops 700 feet in 1.1 miles, and an average of 54,000 people hiked it each year, about 10% of the park's visitors. The project clears loose rock, rebuilds the whole trail and replaces the dock that failed in 2016. The rest of the park runs as usual.

The Park Service's pages disagree on when boat tours return. The project page, updated in April 2026, says there will be no public boat tours in the summers of 2026, 2027 and 2028. The boat-tour page, updated in July, says only 2026 and 2027. The ranger-programs page, from August, says there are no boat tours until 2029. The closure alert runs to 1 July 2029.

What made the Phantom Ship and Wizard Island?

Crater Lake fills the caldera of Mount Mazama, a volcano about 12,000 feet high whose summit collapsed after an eruption about 7,700 years ago. The Park Service calls it the largest explosive eruption in the Cascades in the past 400,000 years. The caldera is 5 to 6 miles across.

Wizard Island is a cinder cone that grew soon after the collapse, as the lake filled. Only 2% of it now stands above the water. The Phantom Ship, the lake's other island, is 500 feet long and 170 feet high. Its overlook on East Rim Drive opens from July to October, weather permitting, and is out of reach by car now.

No rivers or streams feed the lake, so its water comes only from rain and snow. Its clarity averages 102 feet, and it has not frozen over since 1949. Mount Scott, at 8,929 feet, is the highest point in the park, and Hillman Peak, at 8,151 feet, the highest on the rim.

How much snow falls on Crater Lake?

Crater Lake's snowfall averages 41 feet a year, according to the Park Service's FAQ, down from 51 feet in the 1930s. Its snowshoe page says 42 feet. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normal at park headquarters is 463 inches, about 39 feet, a figure NOAA marks as provisional. The record is 879 inches, or 73 feet, in the winter of 1932–33.

Recent winters have varied widely, from 25 feet in 2021 to 52 feet in 2023. Every vehicle must carry chains or traction tyres in winter. Cars that are not equipped may be turned back at the entrance. Four-wheel and all-wheel drive vehicles with winter tyres are exempt from chains.

Once the snow settles, Rim Drive becomes a route for skiing and snowshoeing, though the routes are not groomed. No one may go down into the caldera on skis or snowshoes. About 80 skiers and 40 snowshoers a year circle the lake, a 31-mile loop that takes three days on average and needs a permit.

How do the ranger snowshoe walks on the rim work?

Crater Lake's ranger-guided snowshoe walks run on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from late November through April, conditions permitting. They also run on weekdays in the winter and spring breaks. The park had announced no start date for 2026–27 on 27 October.

Each walk starts at 12:30 p.m. and lasts two hours. It covers 1 to 2 miles off-trail along the rim, or near headquarters when the rim road is shut. Snowshoes come with the walk, walkers must be 8 or older, and pets are not allowed. The walk is free apart from the $20 winter entrance fee, but walkers must book a place by phone on 541-594-3100.

The walks are not guaranteed every winter: in 2024 the season did not start until 17 March. The Rim Village Café and Gift Shop also rents snowshoes from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on days it opens, with no overnight rental.

When do the Rim Village lodge and the Mazama Village cabins open?

Crater Lake Lodge and the Cabins at Mazama Village open only from spring to early autumn, and both are shut now. Explor Crater Lake, the company that runs them, published these dates for 2026. It had not published dates for 2027.

The Park Service says the lodge is usually open from mid-May to early October and takes bookings up to 365 days ahead. The concessioner says the lodge and cabins are full the entire season, and none of the rooms has air conditioning, a television or a phone. Mazama Campground takes reservations on Recreation.gov.

Which rim hikes look down into the caldera?

Crater Lake's trails with lake views start near the rim at about 7,100 feet. Most of them are under snow and ice from December into June, and in winter the trails carry no markers. The distances below are the park's own figures, as round trips.

Mount Scott's summit gives the only view of the entire lake from within the park, the Park Service says. Watchman Peak, which climbs to a fire lookout, draws crowds at sunset. Plaikni Falls is a snowmelt waterfall, and all-terrain wheelchairs can use the trail except its last quarter.

How cold is Crater Lake against Medford and Klamath Falls?

At 6,485 feet, Crater Lake's headquarters averages no days at all over 90°F. Even in August, its warmest month, the average high is 69°F. Medford, the gateway to the west, averages 61 such days a year and is about 23°F warmer in July.

The table gives NOAA's 1991 to 2020 average highs and lows. Headquarters gets 66.76 inches of precipitation a year, more than three and a half times Medford's, and December is the wettest month. The Park Service counts November to April as winter and July to mid-September as summer, with May, June and October hard to predict.

Smoke from wildfires can limit views of the lake in summer and autumn, and fire season often runs into late September and October. In August 2024 the North Entrance closed for the Middle Fork Fire. August is the busiest month, with 189,696 visits in 2025, and February the quietest, with 3,060.

How do you reach Crater Lake when the North Entrance is shut?

In winter the only road to Crater Lake is Highway 62, through the West Entrance from Medford or the South Entrance from Klamath Falls. The North Entrance Road shuts for about seven months a year from 1 November. In 2026 it closed on 26 October. The park's alert says the roads reopen in mid-June or early July, depending on the snowpack, while an older Park Service page says the first stretch reopens from May.

From Portland, Eugene or Bend, the Park Service's winter route continues south on US 97 to Chiloquin, then takes Highway 62 to the South Entrance. Satellite navigation may send drivers onto the closed North Entrance Road, so enter "Rim Village" instead. There is no public transport near the park.

The distances in the table are our own routing. The Park Service puts Medford's airport 75 miles from park headquarters. Its 2022 list names Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta and United there. There has been no petrol in the park since the pumps stopped on 13 October. The nearest is in Prospect, 33 miles west of headquarters, or Chiloquin, 34 miles south.

The park is on Pacific Time, and clocks went back an hour on 1 November 2026, the start date of the winter fee. It is the national park in our guide to Oregon. The next parks south are across the California line: Redwood National and State Parks is about 220 miles away by road and Lassen Volcanic National Park about 260, on our own routing.