Did you know there are 63 National Parks in the US? All but 14 of them are west of the Mississippi River. We’ve only visited a handful, but one is just an hour’s drive south.
Alaska and California each have eight national parks, Utah has five, and Oregon has one … Crater Lake. It’s only 180,000 acres, and while it is a spectacular sight, the lake is the park’s biggest draw.
In Montana, I grew up minutes from Glacier National Park. That park is just over a million acres in size. Nearly every Sunday in the summer, we fished a river that defines Glacier’s western border, but only on rare occasions did we actually drive into the park. National Parks attract lots of people, so you really need to be strategic about when and how you go.
For us, Crater Lake is a perfect day trip. A road follows along the crater’s rim, with numerous pullouts, photo ops and picnic areas.
The park is snowbound and closed to vehicles through May. We usually wait for the north entrance to open and this year it happened to be late June.
An early start puts us in the park by 8:00 a.m., usually ahead of the crowds. The East Rim Road is our preferred route, though a section was still closed for repairs. A windless day put a mirror like surface on the lake, perfect photo weather.
Great park review!