Crater Lake National Park (2) – Hiking Wizard Island

The boat takes us to the wizard island. Throughout a day, there are only a few boats which arrived here. So our hiking almost feels private. Even though, we talked about how nice it could be if we can arrived on a zip-line from the rim 🙂

The wizard island looks dark and mysterious and perfect for an adventure. We have an 8 years old who made to the top easy (he said I should say “surviving” instead :D). It is not a difficult hike but strenuous, due to its steepness.

At the bottom, where our hike starts, there is barely a trail but many rocks. I kept saying “my hiking boot is awesome” down there 🙂 Watch your feet and get a good pair of boots to protect your ankles.

The climb is steep and felt hot, so make sure you carry more than just a bottle of water. The trail is very narrow and at most of the places, it only can support one way traffic. But luckily, we did not see many people but the ones from our boat, which were all going up.

See this awesome view from the cliff. Most of our hike see this type of cliffs.

From the island, you see an interesting perspective of the crater lake and its rims. There is still snow here and there. They will not be melt throughout the year.

We did not see many creatures on the trail even birds, except this type of ground squirrels. They are not afraid of people, so we can get close. Crater lake did not have fish until recently, some salmon and rainbow trout had been introduced. That’s probably why we don’t see many birds around. Also the area gets cold and there are lots of snow falls throughout the year. The average annual snowfall at Crater Lake is about 41 feet (12.5 m).

The pines are being killed by invasive lichen.

On the top of the mountain, there is a trail around a small crater.

But it is narrow at places. You can walk around the crater with very unique views: one side is a crater and the other side is the caldera and crater lake. Amazing geography features.

Here is this lake view from the peak of the wizard island. It is a great place to meditate and reflect your life. This type of view helps you feel the power of the nature and gives you courage to make big changes in life.

Here is a great look of the small crater on the peak of the wizard island. My son and I hiked down. We followed a path where the rain water went through. It was slippery, steep and sandy. We were so determined to go down to see the center of the crater, although we were not sure how easily we can climb up. It was super hot and we were tired and running out of water, but sometimes, we do things like this in life :).

Wow, it looks like this in the center of the crater, my first time. What will you think then?

Hiking down to the bottom can be super fast. After the hike, we dumped ourselves into the lake. It was super cold. I was down in the water for 2 minutes, had to come up for some sun, and then went down again. There are small beaches on the other side of the island. Some people on our boat did not go to hiking but stayed at the beach the whole time.

There are barely any facilitates on the island except a small potty. We also found some boat houses. Do you know how the boats on the crater lake arrived there?

They used helicopters! In winter, the boats will stayed down here in boat houses. The boats only run from early-July to mid-September. Book your tickets early!

The hiking was only 2.4 miles round trip, and maybe took 1-2 hour. But the geography is just so astonishing, making it a memorable hike.