Bend is a world-class destination, but when summer wildfire smoke rolled in and wiped out our hiking plans, we needed an escape.
Crater Lake National Park is just a two-hour drive south, making it an easy day trip from Bend. We almost skipped it entirely because the trail down to the water was closed, but the detour turned out better than we imagined.
Instead of driving straight down Highway 97, staring at the lake from the gift shop overlook, and heading home, we summited two volcanic ridges in the morning and hit two classic waterfalls on the drive back.
Trip at a Glance
- Drive Time: ~5 to 6 hours total (depending on your waterfall stops)
- Morning: Caldera ridge trails and top-down Wizard Island views
- Midday: Packed lunch along the Rim Village stone wall
- Afternoon: Old-growth forest waterfall trails along Highway 138
- Route: Highway 97 South to Highway 138 West (North Entrance), Rim Drive to Rim Village, exit North Entrance back to Highway 138 West for waterfalls, loop back via Highway 138 East to Highway 97 North.
Morning: Caldera Trails
Crater Lake sits above 6,000 feet, so leave Bend early to beat both the midday heat and the tour bus crowds. We left just before 7:00 a.m. and pulled into our first trailhead right at 9:00 a.m.
Pick one or two trails depending on your timing and how much climbing you want to get in before lunch.
Watchman Peak Trail
- Distance: 1.7 miles round-trip
- Elevation Gain: ~400 feet
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Details: Steady dirt switchbacks leading up to a historic stone fire lookout built in 1932. Starting from the large pull-out along West Rim Drive, this is the trail to pick for a clear, direct view looking straight down into Wizard Island. The path is wide, easy to follow, and quick enough to finish before mid-morning crowds start packing the overlook.
Read more about Watchman Peak Trail.
Garfield Peak Trail
- Distance: 3.4 miles round-trip
- Elevation Gain: ~1,100 feet
- Difficulty: Strenuous
- Details: Starts right behind Crater Lake Lodge. The path climbs steadily along a rocky ridgeline, with narrow stretches and sharp drops straight down toward the water on one side and expansive views across the southern Cascades on the other. It is steeper, rockier, and more exposed than Watchman, but the panoramic views of the entire caldera are tough to beat.
Read more about the Garfield Peak Trail.
Cleetwood Cove Trail
- Distance: 2.2 miles round-trip
- Elevation Gain: ~700 feet
- Difficulty: Strenuous
- Details: Located along the north rim, this is the only permitted access route down to the water. The rest of the caldera consists of unstable, crumbling pumice and sheer cliff bands where scrambling is strictly prohibited. The trail itself is a steep, dusty gravel drop with an unrelenting, switchbacking slog on the way back up.
- Current Status Note: Cleetwood Cove and the boat marina are closed for extensive reconstruction work through 2029.
Midday: The Rim Village Lunch Reality
By noon, Rim Village is packed. We already had lunch packed in the car, but we wandered into Crater Lake Lodge anyway to check out the building and see if we could score a scoop of ice cream or snag a table. The dining room was fully booked, and there was no quick ice cream counter in sight.
You can drive down to Mazama Village for casual food and convenience store snacks, but we refused to give up our parking spot since the Rim Village lots were overflowing by midday.
Pack a cooler with lunch, cold drinks, and snacks before you leave Bend. Sitting outside along the stone rim wall with your own food saves an hour of waiting, protects your parking space, and gives you an unobstructed view of the water while you eat.
Afternoon: Highway 138 Waterfalls
When I realized how close we were to Highway 138 (Oregon’s famous waterfall corridor), adding the side quest was an easy call. Leaving through the park’s North Entrance puts you right on Highway 138 West and drops you into the river corridor in about 30 minutes.
Highway 138 has multiple trailheads right off the road. You can easily do both of the main waterfall hikes below, plus a couple of quick roadside stops along the way.
- Optional Stops
- Diamond Lake Overlook: Just past the park boundary along Highway 138, pull off at the Diamond Lake viewpoint. Mount Thielsen sits directly across the water. It is a quick two-minute stop for views of the lake and the jagged volcanic spire.
- Clearwater Falls: Located right off Highway 138 between Diamond Lake and Toketee Falls. A short, flat 0.1-mile path leads to a quick view of a small spring-fed cascade. It takes about ten minutes total and requires almost no physical effort.
Toketee Falls
- Distance: 1.0 miles round-trip
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Details: The trail winds along the North Umpqua River through tall timber before climbing and dropping down about 200 wooden and stone stairs. A railed viewing platform at the end looks directly across at a two-tiered waterfall framed by vertical columns of basalt. Climbing all those stairs is the only reason this short hike gets a moderate rating.
Read more about Toketee Falls.
Watson Falls
- Distance: 0.9-mile loop or out-and-back
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Details: Located five minutes west of Toketee. Watson drops 272 feet down a basalt cliff, making it the third-tallest waterfall in Oregon. The trail climbs a steady dirt path through a boulder field up to a wooden footbridge near the base.
- Trail Note: The wooden footbridge near the base has been closed due to damage, turning the usual loop into an out-and-back hike to the viewing area.
Read more about Watson Falls.
The Drive Back to Bend
From your last waterfall stop, turn around and head east on Highway 138 back toward Highway 97. The drive from the waterfall corridor back to Bend takes roughly 2 to 2.5 hours, putting you back in town right in time for dinner.