Crater Lake — Friday, Aug. 29, 2014

Central Cascades > Stevens Pass - West

Two adults and two kids (6 years old) made the trek to Crater Lake on Friday. Contractors had parked about 3/4 mile from the trailhead and put up a "ROAD CLOSED" sign. We parked behind them and walked down the road to where 2 track hoes were working. The crew told us that they are decommissioning the road. They removed a 5 foot diameter corrugated steel culvert and had covered the last few hundred feet of the road in straw. It looks like this long neglected trail will now be longer. The old trailhead is on the southwest corner of the now-decommissioned road end. Right from the start this trail is brushed in and while passable, needs a lot of work. There are several places where fallen trees are now the trail - walk along them until you see the obscure, but still recognizable track head off in a new direction. There is some flagging. The first section of the trail, perhaps 1/2 mile from the old trailhead, traverses below some cliffs and fallen rock. Then it turns to go up the hill. There is a place where the tread diverges several times in a short distance. Pink flagging is generally the way to go until it isn't. There is a point at which the pink flagging heads steeply up hill, then west again under some steep slopes. This takes you to the outlet creek and a dead end. Instead, look right (east) for a piece of yellow flagging and a more gentle slope that follows a sometimes muddy slightly gully-ish route with some very small bits of flagging but some fairly obvious trail. This will take you up to the muddy, marshy last tenth of a mile or so to the lake. We didn't see much trash, but did haul out a cigarette carton and someone's lunch remains. The lake area and small campsite were not too bad - very little trash. 3 fisherman came up right behind us and went around the west shore. We didn't see any fish jump at all. The lake is pretty and worth the slog. Perhaps WTA can invest a day or two of crew time to make this a better trail, especially now that it is longer due to the decommissioning of the road. I forgot my clippers or we would have spent more time cutting back brush.